Loose Stones
by C. Jordan
Summary: Ichigo is a jeweler's son who helps Rukia discover the true worth of the gemstones in her possession. Aizen is put in charge of finding them both. AU.
1. Chapter 1

Ichigo didn't like New York as much as he used to. It had become a city less than welcome to him, and he tried to avoid it.

That hadn't been easy, not when so many of his father's former clients were ready to sell back their stones in the wake of Homeland Security's new lease with the Internal Revenue Service, or the new money coming out.

He sat in the small bar, watching the pool game a few yards away, waiting for the elderly Italian man across the table to finish frowning at his paper money. The new bills coming out always confused the old-timers. They didn't understand something that wouldn't make as much sense as the old monetary notes.

He ran a hand through his orange-brown hair, biting his tongue to keep his rising irritation in check. His patience had thinned since he'd taken over his father's business, what was left of it.

"Sure, I'll sell them to you, but I can't accept these old bills, Mr. Gralini," he said, trying to clarify the issue for the third time that evening.

"Says they're legal tender, Ichigo." Gralini jabbed a bony finger at the fifty dollar note in his hand.

Ichigo moved their set of whiskey glasses to the side, his tone lowering as the pool game continued. "When presented outside the United States. They're International notes. Pan-Ameros. Good only outside of the U.S. Besides, they're obsolete since the new notes came out. You have to check the date."

Gralini sat back and scratched his balding head, his round belly between him and the small table he shared with the younger man. Ichigo, at his twenty-four years, didn't have the years necessary to make thim he expert that he clearly was, but Gralini had know his father, Kurosaki, before he'd disappeared. He'd been one of the best-connected jewelers in North America, and that was enough to vouch for his son.

He shook his head. "We never used to need new ones. Nothing wrong with the old ones. They used to have presidents on them, you know."

Ichigo sighed, waving to the waitress for two more whiskeys. "I've seen them. We've been through this before. You have to convert when the new notes come out.

"These changes, all coming so fast. First the money, then declaring gemstones as income; gemstones shouldn't be against the law."

"Well, undeclared stones are. You know how they're governed. Stones count."

The waitress brought their drinks and left. Gralini downed half of his, leaning over the table closer to Ichigo. "I want something to pass on, Ichigo. The tax man will get all my grandchildren's inheritance." He glanced around the bar at the men playing pool and at the other tables. The music was some mournful ballad, and while it wasn't what he'd have chosen, it added enough cover noise. He set a small box on the table.

"All the gemstones from the jewelry store, it's all been chemically coated. Declared. Not like what I bought from your father. If it was clean, the grandchildren could sell it to someone such as you, and get a better price, right?"

Ichigo nodded. "Did you register them?"

Gralini's eyes twinkled. "Sadly, no. I am an old man, and my memory fails, when I choose it to."

Ichigo grinned, drinking his whiskey. "Good."

Gralini nodded. "Now, how do I get the wash off?'

"It doesn't come off, Mr. Gralini." Ichigo watched the older man's face fall. It was this way with so many of his father's clients, resisting change, but unable to circumvent it. "But you could have them recut. Repackaged."

Gralini looked hopeful at this mention. "That would do it?"

Ichigo nodded.

"You could do it?"

"No problem." Inscriptions, insurance IDs, chemical washes, and everything else that had become the jewelry business confused gemstone holders. A matter that the newly created Division Five of Homeland Security/IRS had found advantageous. It was also instrumental in driving out the best jeweling familes, and had taken his own parents to their graves. "I'll recut them, and you needn't buy new clean stones from me." He finished the whiskey. "But you do need to keep up with the new local money."

Gralini nodded, pushing the box across the table to Ichigo.

*****

The house at 9681 Beecher Road in Musgrove Wisconsin was much like the other older farmhouses on the road, spaced by acres of what had at one time been farmland, large and roomy, and closer to town than they'd ever been before. A quiet, unassuming neighborhood, where the median age of the homeowners was seventy-two, which made York fit right in.

He didn't farm anymore -- hadn't in years. The machinery and much of the acreage had been sold off to individuals wanting a sizeable chunk of quiet, and what remained of his three hundred acre farm was enough to live on and watch the deer and occasional coyote cross. He hadn't yielded to the urban sprawl the township planners had tried to force upon him since his wife had died. Hadn't yielded to much over the last few years.

Milton York's aged eyes looked over the contents of the table in his silent kitchen, his tall, lean form bent over the stones. She was the only one left now, Rukia was.

In his fingers he turned the blue sapphire wedding ring, and then looked to the photo on the table propped against the wall of he and his bride of nearly fifty years.

"Lovely woman, Rose," he said to her. Even in death he saw her only as he ever had. Alive, beautiful, ready for anything.

He sighed, slipping the ring into a small blue velvet pouch, then reached for his cane leaned at the edge of the table and stood.

*****

Outside the York residence it was a sunny, vibrant day, with the summer's heat rolling down the two lane road surrounded by maple trees. Across the road was another farmhouse, on its wide porch one of the younger couples, being only in their late sixties, that lived on the road. As York followed the stone walkway to the mailbox at the roadside, Frank and Grace Combs watched from their porch, he in his usual slat-backed rocking chair, she on the glider that squeaked, fanning herself with an old church bulletin.

York waved to them. "Frank! Grace!"

Frank nodded. "Going into town, Milt?"

York nodded, waving again. "See my grand-daughter!"

He slipped an envelope into his mailbox and took the sidewalk that now ran along the roadside into town four blocks away. It was an easy walk, except for the heat of the day that was increasing as the morning wore on. Musgrove lacked many conveniences, but a prompt bus run was not one of them. He reached the bus stop fifteen minutes later, and caught the bus heading to Indiana.

And to Rukia's house.


	2. Chapter 2

Rukia walked down the sidewalk, her usual gait a little slower, her violet eyes sadder than normal. She sighed in the hot noonday sun, pulling her mild yellow cotton blouse away from her chest, wishing for a little relief from the hot day.

Michael wouldn't like it. Her job at the laundromat wasn't much, brought in little income, but it was better than nothing.

And she knew they needed every bit of income if they were going to have a baby. She groaned inwardly at the painful thought of her last stillborn child. She was ready to try again. Michael was, too.

Her coral lips set at the thought of the fallout from her last ordeal. Michael hadn't handled it well. Oh, he'd been there for her -- consoled her, encouraged her.

And then went to that barmaid's bed to ease his own hurt.

Her small hands balled into fists at the memory. They hadn't been able to afford counseling, but he had agreed to go to the free sessions at the local church for a few weeks with her.

It was over, she thought. The affair was a one-time thing, he'd promised her. Things had gotten better between them. Life was normal. That's what she told herself.

A baby would make everything normal.

"Marrying childhood sweethearts is like that," one of the other women at the sessions had told her. "Marry young, and you're hurting earlier in life."

Rukia didn't consider nineteen that young to marry. She hadn't listened to her. Hadn't believed the woman. Michael was different.

She looked up as she neared their small home on the street of other modest houses. A smile spread across her face as she brushed a stray dark hair from her eyes.

"Grandpa York!" she cried, seeing the tall form sitting on the steps to their house. "I didn't know you were coming by. You didn't walk to the bus stop from the farm, I hope.'

She quickened her pace to greet him as he stood.

He smiled as she met him. "Farm's not that far from town anymore," he said, his arms folding around her. "Sidewalk right up to the porch, Rukia. Had an appointment in Chicago and thought I'd come down and see you." He kissed the top of her dark head.

She smiled, surprised by the tight hold of his arms, at the strength still left in him. She hooked an arm in his. "An extra hour trip just to see me? Come on in."

*****

She ushered him into the front door, through the small but well-kept room to the kitchen at the back of the first floor. She pulled out a chair at the table and went to the refrigerator, clicking on the fan above it.

"Doctor's appointment?" she asked, biting her lip as she opened the refrigerator and found the iced tea pitcher.

"Yes." He grunted as he leaned the cane to one side of the table. "The old ticker wants more attention now. Nothing serious, dear." His voice took on a noticeable sharpness. "How are you and Michael doing?"

"Fine."

"You are?"

"Oh, sure." She poured two glasses full of tea and set the pitcher back in the refrigerator. She placed one glass before him, and smoothed her skirt, sitting down with him and her own glass. She gave him a knowing look. "Oh, that's all past." She took a long drink of tea, not meeting his eyes. "That's all long past," she said in a meeker tone.

He nodded, watching her as he drank the tea.

"We're still trying, of course. Oh, I forgot the ice."

She hopped up and went to the freezer for the ice tray. She slipped a few cubes in each of their glasses.

"I meant, everything else, dear," he clarified.

She put the ice tray back in the freezer, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear as she resumed her seat. "We were both under a lot of strain --"

"That's no excuse," he said quickly, fingers tightening around his glass. "If I were twenty years younger --"

"That's all long past." She patted his hand, her smile in place. "I wish you'd have called. It's too hot to be out walking."

"Ah, it's the humidity I can do without. I wanted to talk to you when Michael's not around. If you ever need help, any kind, I want to know, Rukia." His hand caught hers, his hard fingers closing around her small, soft ones.

"Oh, Grandpa, we're fine."

He nodded, looking around the room. It was pale yellow, with orange and green curtains and towels, unassuming in a number of ways.  "You'd let me know, if you needed anything? You wouldn't have to tell Michael, dear."

Rukia smiled, thoughts of losing her job to downsizing making her feel guilty and relieved at his visit, somehow both at once. "Grandpa ...yes, of course, I'd tell you."

He smiled, nodding.

*****

Aizen threw the burly man against the none too clean brick walk of the alley, pushing the man's head in burning contact with the surface. He kept the nine millimeter angled at the man's head while he frisked him. "Fourteen stones, unwashed, that makes it a felony, buddy!"

Behind him his partner of eight years, Paulson, was sorting through the plastic bag of uncut gemstones, pocketing two rubies while Aizen wasn't looking. "Hey, it's only twelve, Aizen. Can't you count, man?"

Aizen handcuffed the large man in front of him, subduing him with a shove when he tried to spit on him. "You sure, Paulson?"

He nodded, his stout form shaking in a few loose spots. "It's still a felony. Anything over ten unwashed is a felony."

Aizen pushed the cuffed man before Paulson, and took a moment to straighten his dark blue duster and flip the lapel back over his Division Five badge, sighing in the New York afternoon. "You'd think in this heat the department would find something a little lighter weight to wear."

Paulson shook his head, closing one hand around the smuggler's handcuffs. "Show pony, Sousuke. Take it up with management. Maybe they'll find you something more fashionable."

Aizen chuckled, watching Paulson push the man ahead of them as they headed out of the alley. "Like hell. You know Ichimaru wouldn't spring for anything other than Homeland blue."

"Get yourself a desk job, and then you can sit around in your briefs."

They headed out of the alley to the waiting black SUV at the corner of the street.

Paulson shook his head. "Unless you're not a briefs man."

"Go to hell, Pauly."

*****

Rukia leaned back in the white wicker rocking chair of the small upstairs bedroom early that evening, looking around at the clutter. It was a happy clutter, sometimes sad, but hopeful.

The baby crib, high chair, boxes of clothing, dresser with the lamp shaped like a hot air balloon -- it was all waiting. Still waiting.

She looked at the blue sweater on her lap, so small and soft. She smoothed the wrinkles with her fingers, memories of the small boy who'd never breathed playing through her mind. Leaning to the dresser, she pulled the baby book to her and opened it. The first page was empty. Her fingers traced the spot that was supposed to hold his first photo. She sighed. He'd have been two by now.

She looked up as Michael entered the room.

She smiled. He had a strong build from his years of work at the construction site, his ordinarily medium brown hair lightened by the long days in the sun, his eyes steel blue. Handsome, she thought, by any standards.

He smiled a bit, sighing. "Thought you might be in here." He kissed her cheek, pushing the sweater away. "You've got to stop doing this to yourself, Rukia."

She nodded. "Someday."

"We'll have another."

She glanced to the photo on the dresser of her parents and her, taken when she was eight. "They'd have loved being grandparents, Michael."

"I know." He followed her gaze, then picked up the photo, his eyes going over it for a long moment. They rested on the emerald pendant she was wearing in it.

She stood up and stepped near to him, slipping a small arm around his waist. He pulled her closer.

"Grandpa York stopped by today."

He looked to her. "How's he doing?"

She nodded, looking up at him. "Good. I'd like to see him more."

He set the photo on the dresser. "We will."

Rukia hesitated with her next words, reading the weary in his face. "They let me go at the dry cleaners today. A few others, too," she added hurriedly. "Business is slow."

He nodded, his hand sliding up her back, fingers pressing gently. "Don't worry about it. There are better jobs. Did you tell your Grandpa about it?"

"No." A cooking timer rang from downstairs. She lifted an eyebrow, relived he'd taken the news so well. "Hungry?"

"I'm starved."

*****

Dinner was half over before Michael realized Rukia had eaten little. She sat at the table with him, the kitchen well past warm, the classified section of the newspaper to one side of her plate. Her only flicker of joy had come when she spoke of her grandfather's visit. And that, he thought, looking to the photo she'd brought down from the unoccupied nursery. It was propped against the wall on the table. He nodded to it.

"Cute girl, Rukia."

She smiled, blushing a little. "I'd like to hang it up somewhere."

"Sure thing. How old were you there?"

"Eight." She pushed the newspaper aside, picking with her fork at the pork chop she'd only half eaten. "There's nothing in the paper. I'll get the metro tomorrow."

He wished she'd forget the job hunt for a few minutes. "That locket you're wearing," he said, nodding to the photo, "do you still have it?"

She shook her head, a sadness coming to her eyes. "About a month before graduation Dad said the setting was loose, and took it in to be checked. The jewelry store went out of business, and he never got it back."

"Too bad. Be a nice memory."

"Yes." She took the photo and pulled a second photo from under the first. It was of her parents' wedding, a modest ceremony, her mother in white, her father looking sharp in his black suit. "Mr. and Mrs. Robert Kuchiki. They got married after Dad got the Wisconsin-Ohio route hauling paperworks out of Cincinnati."

He nodded, sighing. "Wish they were here for you now, Rukia. You've still got Grandpa York."

She smiled.

*****

The farmhouse was dark, the only light coming from the kitchen as York sat at the table, the half finished glass of bourbon before him, the phone with its knotted cord beside it. He unfolded the small piece of worn paper, a piece he'd kept for twenty years. The folds were creased nearly to the point of tearing, and he'd always meant to copy it onto a new one, but never had.   

The phone number was still readable. He wondered if it still worked.

People changed phone numbers in twenty years, he told himself. Many times. Even without government intervention.

He pulled the phone closer across the table.

*****

Ichigo sat hunkered over the small table in the hotel room, a jeweler's loupe stuck in one eye. Not a very nice hotel room, in fact, but all he could get in late day with the Mets in town for the next two games. He positioned the stone in the rubber-lined jaws of the table vice he had fixed to the table. Beside it lay an assortment of bits, a chisel, a jeweler's hammer, and a dial caliper. They were the bare necessities, but he still didn't like using them to recut, and rarely did.

He hated using the temporary setup in absence of a proper faceting machine, but Gralini hadn't been interested in perfect cuts or jewelry-quality shapes; he'd just wanted clean stones. He was working on the pink tourmaline, the second of Gralini's he'd promised to recut. It would result in not only shedding the electrostatic chemical wash applied by the jeweler, but a stone that would be clean, and while smaller, worth many times over its value as a traceable stone. In the ash tray a cigarette burned away, neglected.

His cell phone rang, but it didn't hamper his work, not after ten years in cutting stones. He reached for the phone, clicked it on.

"Yes?" His eyes went over the gemstones he had yet to resize.

"Is this Kurosaki?" an elderly man's deep voice asked.

Ichigo senses sharpened. He hadn't heard his last name spoken aloud in quite some time. "Who?"

"This is Milton York," the man said.

Ichigo put the loupe down, full attention going to the caller. The name was familiar. "This is Ichigo. Haven't heard from you in a long time. Ten years or more." And even then it had been by way of his father.

York chuckled. "Didn't think this number would get me through. Isshin gave it to me when the Federal boys got rough."

Ichigo sat back in his chair, stretching his long legs out beneath the table. "It's been altered. You're safe."

"I know the heat was on you after Isshin passed on. I never thanked him for not caving in to Federal pressure."

Ichigo shrugged and picked up the cigarette. "Client records are confidential. That was our policy, Mr. York." He took a drag on the cigarette.

"Confidentiality. Not much of that left. Didn't know if you were even still around. A lot of the old jewelling families are imprisoned."

Ichigo nodded. "Most, yes." He felt around in his shirt pocket for the pack of cigarettes, finding none. He looked to his leather jacket on the bed.

"You still handle the stones as your father did?" York asked.

"Exactly." Ichigo frowned at the jacket, then lent his full attention on the caller.

"Glad to hear it. I have a matter I'd like to settle. I want no problems for my granddaughter."

"We can arrange anything you like, Mr. York."

"Good. I have a few ducks to line up. Should my attorney need to locate you upon my death, you can still be reached at the post office box number your father used?"

Ichigo nodded. "Yes, but the name is Fields now."

"I see. I'll let you know more later. I'm sorry for your loss, son."

Ichigo looked to the pile of stones on the table. "Thanks."

The line clicked silent, and he pushed a button on the phone. He stared at it thoughtfully for a moment, and then set it on the table and mashed out the cigarette. He went to the bed, moved aside the jacket and opened the laptop beneath it. He reached into his front jean pocket and dropped three flash drives on the bed, settling beside them, sorting through them. He stuck one in the laptop's USB port and turned it on.

Milton York's purchase history popped up on the screen, displaying activity over the last thirty years.

Ichigo whistled lowly, his brown eyes going over the list. "Milton York, Musgrove, Wisconsin," he read from the screen. "Quite the collector, once upon a time..."    


	3. Chapter 3

The bank teller looked up as Milton York entered the small branch of Bank of Greater Wisconsin that afternoon. She smiled, recognizing the elderly man from other visits, knowing him by face, name, and limp.

She nodded as he stepped before her at the counter. "Good afternoon, Mr. York. What can we do for you today?"

York returned her smile. That was what kept him coming back to the modest local bank branch, personal attention, and one of the few banks that hadn't outgrown the needs of Musgrove's aging population. "I'd like to see my deposit box. One-thirty-nine."

"Very well. I'll have Chuck put you through." She turned to look across the lobby to where the security guard stood near an open doorway in the brick wall. "Go right in, Mr. York."

He crossed the hushed room, his steps slow on the low pile, well-worn dark red carpet. The security guard, Chuck, was in his sixties, a thin man whose holster drooped on his lean waist. He tipped his hat to York as the older man passed and went into the safe deposit room.

It was a little room, holding the smaller of deposit boxes, devoid of table or other furnishings, and a younger woman was at her box at another wall when he stepped in. York went to Box 139 and fit his key into the lock, turning it. From his pocket he took the velvet pouch and pulled the sapphire ring from it. For a moment his fingers were tight on it, his thumb pressing into the inscribed band, memories of fifty years of marriage playing through his mind. His hand began to tremble slightly, and he put the ring back in the pouch, and pulled out the box. Inside were two larger black cloth pouches.

He loosened the drawstring on one and slipped the blue pouch inside it, then tightened the string and folded the top over itself. A shooting pain caught his chest, and York put a hand to his heart, pressing firmly, wincing. The pain seized for a moment longer, and then eased off. He breathed slowly, a chill sweat breaking out over his face.

He pushed the box closed, twisting the lock. He looked around the room. The woman had left. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. He breathed carefully, and then made his way slowly out of the room.

*****

It wasn't the first such episode, and they'd been happening more lately. York didn't want to admit it, even to himself, but his health was failing. His thoughts had turned to Rukia, his sole grandchild, his only heir.

He took his time walking home, savoring the late afternoon shade and fragrant tuberoses that leaned over a neighbors fence as he passed on the sidewalk. Even as he climbed the three steps to the porch of his house, York knew something wasn't right, and it was getting worse.

His breath fell short of his lungs as he passed through the living room and into the kitchen. He sank heavily into a chair at the table, the cane sliding, falling to the floor. He put a shaky hand to his pants pocket, searching for the handkerchief there.

"Milt!" Frank's voice called from the screen door at the front porch. "Got your mail again!"

York's hand clenched the handkerchief, his other hand holding his chest. He heard the screen door open and close.

"You'd think after fifty years they'd get the damn mail straight," Frank's voice grouched, nearing the kitchen.

York tried to rise, his legs buckling as he collapsed to the floor.

Frank rushed into the room. "Milt! Oh lord!" He knelt beside the older man, a hand going to his back. "Hold on, Milt!" He grabbed the phone of the table as York gasped, falling to his side on the floor. Frank punched in a few numbers on the phone. "Get me an ambulance!"

*****

By the time the paramedics loaded Milton York into the ambulance it was near dark. Grace and Frank lingered at the back of the emergency vehicle, her face an ash color beneath her wrinkles, her hands clasped in front of her as her eyes shot between Frank and the medics.

The head paramedic sighed, nodding to them as he approached. "He's stable now. We can reach at the number you gave Leroy?"

Grace looked to the younger medic closing the ambulance doors. "Milt has a granddaughter. She should know, too."

Frank put an arm around Grace's shoulder. "It's his only kin."

The medic nodded. "Do you have her name?"

Grace started to the house, oblivious to the lights of the ambulance flashing around the yard, the dogs yipping across the lane. "Milt has to have it somewhere in the house..."

The paramedic gave Frank a business card. "Call this number when you find a name."

Frank nodded as the medic got into the ambulance.

*****

Later that night Ichigo was back at the bar, watching the pool game in progress as Gralini inspected the box of gemstones he'd recut. Ichigo wanted out of New York. He'd been there for three days, and that time was about all he could take of the city.

Gralini smiled, his aged eyes taking in the gleam of the gemstones in the poor light of the bar. He sifted through the bright stones.

"They're clean now?"

"Yup." Ichigo took a drink of his beer. "Don't try to sell them back to the jewelers, Mr. Gralini. If you want to get rid to them, let me know."

"No. My grandchildren. They'll come to you, you see."

Ichigo had heard it before. "Fine. Be careful. And keep up with the new monies."

Gralini nodded, reaching for his wallet in his jacket pocket.

Ichigo shook his head. "Forget it."

Gralini looked to him in surprise. "No. What is your charge for repackaging stones?"

The younger man leaned over the table as one of the men playing pool looked over at them. "No charge. You're a good client, Mr. Gralini. A good grandfather."

The older man thought this over for a moment, scratching his balding head. "In the old country I would kiss you for this."

Ichigo chuckled. "I'll pass." He watched the man place the stones in the box. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"No. You've helped more than you know."

Ichigo stood and put the money for their drinks on the table. "Let me know if you need anything else."

"My thanks. Take care, Ichigo."

Gralini watched the younger man leave the table, head for the door and into the noisy night. He looked back down at the small box.

No one would suspect the $100,000 worth of stones inside. Or that a man like him would carry them.

*****

The phone ringing woke Rukia from a thick sleep that night. At first she settled closer to Michael, burying her dark hair in his chest as his arm came around her, until neither of them could ignore the incessant ringing.

"Who could that be now?" he grumbled, reaching over to the night stand and flicking on the lamp.

Rukia squeezed her eyes shut against the low light, pulling the lavender and plum comforter closer about them.

Michael picked up the phone and put it to his ear. "Yes?"

Rukia slowly opened her eyes, hearing his heartbeat quicken as he listened. She looked to his face as his eyes dropped to her.

"Yes, she's here..."

He frowned, sitting up slowly. Rukia dropped onto her own pillow with a plop, staring at his back.

"I see."

She sat up, leaning against his arm. "Who is it?"

His voice was lower. "Yes. I'll tell her."

She sat straighter, pulling her peach camisole strap higher over her shoulder as it slipped over her arm. "Who was it?"

His eyes softened as he looked to her, running a hand through his hair. "Honey, it's not good news."

Her fingers embedded in his arm, eyes imploring his. "What? Who?"

"I'm sorry, Rukia. Grandpa York was taken into emergency earlier tonight. Heart-attack."

Her breath caught, eyes widening. "Oh, no!"

His arm closed around her. "I'm sorry, honey. He's gone."

Rukia buried her face in his chest as the tears welled in her eyes. She felt him kiss the top of her head as she drew her knees close.

*****

By the time morning came Rukia had cried herself out. She tried to busy herself in the kitchen, hating the sunshine that streamed through the window over the sink between her small potted plants on the ledge there.

Mocking her anguish, it seemed.

She packed Michael's lunch for the day, intermittently wiping her eyes that threatened to storm again. She looked to the kitchen doorway as he appeared there, dressed for work in jeans and t-shirt.

He stood beside her at the counter, his arm warm and protective around her. "I can stay home, hon."

She tired to smile, but it was a meek failure. She took a mug from the overhead cupboard and poured him a cup of coffee. "No. I'm okay. I've got a few phone calls to make."

"All right." He took a short drink of the hot coffee. "I'll call at lunch."

She nodded and finished packing the lunchbox. "What do you want for breakfast?"

He looked at the scrambled eggs still in the pot on the stove she'd made to prepare his lunch. "You got plans for those?"

She shook her head. "I'm not hungry."

"I'll just take an egg sandwich to go then. Get out of your hair early."

She smiled up at him, this time a fuller smile. "I don't want you out of my hair."

He smiled, kissing her cheek.

*****

Aizen and Paulson arrived at the small branch of Bank of Greater Wisconsin that afternoon. It was a regularly scheduled visit, one that was on their route for the year, a mediocre job that they'd both done a hundred times in the Midwest. The inspections usually produced nothing, but lately, the last six months, there'd been more activity, resulting in IRS audits at a thirty percent increase.

Aizen headed for the bank teller with an open window as Paulson waited at the roped barrier a few feet behind him. The teller looked over their long dark coats and watchful nature with her own suspicions.

"Welcome to Bank of Greater Wisconsin," she said, a cautious smile on her face. She looked to Paulson for a second, and then back to Aizen standing before her. "How can I help you?"

He showed her the D5 badge beneath his coat lapel and she sighed in visible relief. "Agents Aizen and Paulson, Division Five. Personal safe deposits, please."

She nodded and pointed to the open doorway in the brick wall to their left where the security guard was watching, one hand on his sagging holster at his side.

"Right that way," she said.

"Thank you."

Another, older teller sidled up to the first as the men left for the small room under Chuck's scrutiny.

"Hmph," the more experienced teller grunted. "Monthly assets scan? That should be illegal."

The first teller shook her head, watching Aizen and Paulson disappear into the room housing the deposit boxes. "Nothing is illegal for Division Five anymore."

Aizen and Paulson nodded at Chuck as they passed the security guard, and he eased into his usual slouch against the opposite wall. Inside the room another older woman was at a box pulled out from the wall, her aged shoulders hunched in an osteoporosis slump over her slight figure, blue-gray hair carefully curled over her wrinkled face. She looked up at them, faded blue eyes disdainful.

Paulson moved closer to her as she put a protective hand over the items in her deposit box. "Excuse me, ma'am. We're going to have to ask you to step out for a moment."

She gave him and Aizen a loathsome look, sliding the box into the wall. "Nazi IRS bastards," she grumbled before leaving the room.

Aizen chuckled. "She's got you pegged."

Paulson looked after the old woman before turning to the wall of boxes. "Us."

"Charmer."

Paulson withdrew a small scanner from his coat pocket and moved it in a sweeping motion across the rows of boxes.

Aizen was doing the same at the other wall, the flat end of the scanner moving slowly over the rows of boxes, one row at a time, passing over York's Box 139 without reacting. When the red LED point read Box 129 the scanner beeped twice. Aizen passed over the box in question again, and the scanner reacted once more. He pulled out a hand held device the size of a deck of cards, punching in the box number and bank routing code on the keypad.

"I hate these damn small buttons," he muttered as he pressed '_clear'_ and reentered the numbers.

Across the room Paulson had finished without any reactions to the scan, and joined him. "That's because they're designed with teenage girls' fingers in mind."

Aizen ignored him. On the device a name popped up on the equally small screen. "Box One-twenty-nine belongs to Marvin McAllen, attorney-at-law. Two blocks from here." He took out a set of keys out of his pants pocket and found the pass key for Bank of Greater Wisconsin. He fit it into the box lock and pulled out the box.

Paulson leaned closer to see a narrow black velvet case inside. He shook his head as Aizen opened it to expose six four-carat faceted Mozambique rubies. "Likes his rubies, does he?"

Aizen nodded. "Unwashed, chemically clean rubies." He snapped the case shut and closed the empty safe deposit box. "Get us an arrest warrant faxed over for Mr. McAllen, Pauly, and we'll pay him a visit."

*****

Evening fell over Rukia's small hometown, the cooler air lifting the scorching day one degree at a time, bringing the fragrance of wisteria across the modest backyards in the row of older homes that shared her street. She sat with Michael at the rear of their home, on the porch that was merely a poured slab leading out from the back door for four feet-by-four feet, with a cement step running the length of it.

They sat with their backs leaned to the door behind them, her smaller stature just enough so that her head cleared his shoulder in height. She sat in the crook of his arm, their empty glasses of iced tea to one side on the cement. The yard was empty of anything, save a few garbage cans and an old sandbox that had been there when they moved in two years ago.

There was little sand left in it, as it was mostly weeds and wild flowers inside now that had sprung up from non-use.

She sighed, her eyes going to the next yard over as their neighbor came out her front door. She was plainly visible, Ambra was, as her house sat back farther than most on the street, being one of the larger lots. Ambra looked to them, waving, her jean skirt short, tight, barely covering what it was designed to cover. Her tank top was loose -- as usual -- the thin straps draping across and down her dark tanned shoulders, gathered at the bottom at her small waist. She pushed her long auburn hair over her shoulder as she stooped -- strategically, it seemed to Rukia -- to pick up the tawny cat sideling around her bare feet.

Rukia bit her tongue at the words that came to mind. Ambra was much like that barfly Michael had found so irresistible. Her eyes narrowed as Ambra sat down at her front porch, in full view of them, and leaned against her house, bringing the cat to sit in her lap, its paws resting on her chest.

Beside her, Rukia saw Michael's eyes following the movements of cat and neighbor alike. She couldn't resist asking. "Wishing you were the cat, Michael?"

He shook his head, his attention going to Rukia. "How could you think that?"

She looked down as his hand closed over hers, the touch not bringing the reaction in her she knew he wanted. "You know how. The question is, do you?"

His hand tightened. "You know better than that now, honey."

"Do I?" Her tone had more misgivings than it usually did when she thought about the affair. She looked back to Ambra, who was petting the cat's back fondly. "She doesn't act like a married woman, that Ambra. I wonder if Larry gets half the attention that cat does."

Ambra looked to them, waved again.

Rukia fought a shudder, returning a short wave. "Even snakes smile."

Michael shook his head, wishing to change the subject. "What else did Grandpa York's attorney have to say?"

She sighed. "That's about it. I need to wrap up what little business he had. The house will likely be in poor shape. He sold off most of the back acreage to the township a few years back. It should only take about a week to put his affairs in order."

He nodded. "Won't be much to inherit."

Rukia frowned. "I should have seen him more."

He looked at her small fingers laced in his. "You couldn't. Not really. Not with just the one vehicle we have. I promise I'll get a second car as soon as we can afford one. At least you had one final visit. Remember him like that, Rukia." He moved his thumb over the back of her hand. "I'm sorry I can't go with you to the funeral. I'll be working the weekend. Sorry, Rukia."

"Overtime?" She saw him nod slightly. "It's been a while for that. We could really use it."

"Yeah. They're looking to make another foreman at the company."

"You?"

He grinned at her new smile. "Hope so. Will you be all right on your own tomorrow? It's a short bus ride there."

She nodded, then glanced to Ambra. "Will you."

He squeezed her hand. "I'm all yours, honey."

She smiled at the sincerity in his eyes. "Good."

*****

Ichigo sat in the newer model truck at the cemetery just outside the town limits of Musgrove, waiting for the funeral to be over, trying to recognize a woman he'd never seen before.

He sat back behind the steering wheel, a cigarette burning away in his hand draped at the lowered truck window. He could easily see the graveside proceedings. It was a small ceremony, with most of the figures of senior age, thinning hair, gray or white heads bowed as the Baptist minister spoke lowly.

Ichigo looked down at the letter he'd received from Milton York just a few days ago at the Fields address he'd given the older man. He also had a letter forwarded to him to the same address from the Offices of Ramos and Sanders, York's attorneys.

He looked back to the funeral. It was a nice day for the burial, warm but not quite muggy, just enough of a breeze to keep the insects at bay. He much preferred it over New York.

"A photo would have helped, York," he said under his breath, trying to sort through the figures across the street and half acre of gravestones. The minister finished speaking, and some of the mourners moved to other spots, comforting each other. He saw an older woman put her arm around a shorter, diminutive figure with dark hair.

Ichigo pulled his binoculars from under the road map beside him on the seat and trained them on the woman. She was definitely the youngest one there, her slender form dressed in a black dress and dark purple shawl. Her head shook slightly as she sobbed, the older woman's hand brushing across her back consolingly.

Ichigo nodded to himself. So that was Rukia Parker.


	4. Chapter 4

Rukia allowed herself to be escorted to York's farmhouse on the edge of town later that afternoon by Grace Combs. The woman's arm was gentle over her shoulders, consoling, promising support if Rukia needed any.

"Such a shame, young thing like you having to come all this way alone," Grace said as they paused on the front porch. Frank was waiting at the mailbox, watching them. Grace took a moment to reach below the welcome mat and find the spare key. "Milt always kept it there. Everyone knew, but he had nothing to take, Lord rest his soul. House is here, though. Power is still on."

"Thanks for seeing me back, Mrs. Combs," Rukia said, wiping her drying eyes with a tissue.

"Bum taxi driver, leaving you at the cemetery like that." Grace unlocked the front door and pushed it open with a squeak. "You let us know if you need anything, dear. We're right across the road, Frank and I are."

"Thank you. You've been a great help."

Grace handed Rukia the key and patted her small shoulder with a plump hand. "Take care, dear."

Rukia went in the house and closed the door as the neighbor woman made her way down the porch steps. She turned, leaning against the door, violet eyes wandering over the living room.

It was much the same as when she'd last seen it, a bit more cluttered with newspapers and farm reports, but in better shape than she thought it would have been for an elderly man. She moved slowly into the kitchen, smiling at her grandmother's blue delft plate collection lining the wall over the table and few pieces of depression era glass platters displayed in holders on the wall.

For a moment the memories of childhood and smells of cookies and baking pies from her visits made Rukia feel weak, but she didn't sit down.

She left the kitchen and went down the hall to the staircase, pausing at one photo on the wall of her family portrait, the same she'd shown Michael at home, her wearing the locket in it. She looked to her father's distinctly Asian features, his half American heredity lost in Japanese blood, his smile at her mother, also a quarter Japanese. She looked to the aged photo of York and Rose, whose mixed Japanese descent was carefully downplayed in her war bride attempt at assimilation.

She moved down the hall, into the back study that held a roll top desk, wing chair, and overstuffed loveseat that didn't match the chair. She sat at the desk, appreciating the cool breeze that found its way into the room from the open window. She brought her purse closer, opening it and taking out the will she'd gotten from the attorney's office that morning.

So many papers to fill out, she thought, sighing, feeling overwhelmed. As executor of estate she was left in charge of everything, and she was still finding out what that meant. She looked at one of the cubby holes in the opened roll top desk, frowning at the key tucked way in the back of it. Most of the small slots were empty, but out this one she took a small key. She held it up, frowning at it, and then looked through the paperwork detailing York's assets.

She read the number on the twist-tie attached to the key. "There's no mention of a safe deposit box," she murmured aloud, mostly for company in the quite room. She sighed, and decided to look into the matter the next day. She glanced at the clock, and slouched in the chair. Michael wouldn't be off work for a few more hours.

She sat back in the wooden chair, looking at the key.

*****

Ichigo sat in the Chevy 350 pickup outside the Bank of Greater Wisconsin, waiting for a short, dark-haired woman he hoped would show up. He'd been there since the bank had opened two hours ago, trying not to garner any unneeded attention from the small town police squad car that had cruised by him three times already.

At eleven-fifteen he saw Rukia Parker approach from the opposite side of town. He watched her come up the sidewalk, looking at the store front signs overhead, and go into the bank. He threw his half finished cigarette out the window, got out of the truck, and followed her.

Rukia went to the first teller's window that was opened, her fingers nervous on the death certificate and driver's license as she placed them on the counter.

"Hello, can I help you this morning?" the teller asked, not recognizing Rukia from her regular customers.

"Yes, I'm executor of my grandfather's estate," she began tentatively, "and I need to close out his accounts. I'd like to see his safe deposit box."

"Oh." The teller looked at the certificate, then the license, and smiled at Rukia. "I'll be right back with the forms. I need to make a copy of these."

From across the room, Ichigo saw Rukia place the deposit box key on the counter while she waited for the teller. He went to the deposit room, nodding to Chuck, who merely smiled at him, and went inside.

Rukia watched as the teller took her license and the certificate and made copies of them at a corner photocopy machine, and then found two forms from another desk. She came back to the counter and handed the items to Rukia. She typed at her computer for a moment, eyes moving over the screen Rukia couldn't see. "Well, it looks like everything checks out, Ms. Parker. Fill out these forms and bring them back to release Mr. York's accounts." She smiled, pointing to Chuck. "I'm sorry to hear about your grandfather. Go right that way for the safe deposit boxes."

"Thank you." Rukia collected her papers.

She went to where the security guard stood across the doorway from the deposit boxes room and went in. She looked to Ichigo, a little surprised to find someone else in the room, but turned her attention to locating Box 139. She found it after a moment, and fit the key into the lock, then pulled out the long box. She opened the hinged lid, frowning at the two large pouches inside.

Ichigo saw her puzzled look from where he stood across the small room. "You're going to need a bigger purse," he said lowly.

Rukia's eyes darted to him, unsettled. She quickly closed the box and slid it into the wall, then left the room.

Ichigo followed, groaning that he hadn't said something more, something different. She was out of the bank by the time he got to the lobby. He caught up with her outside on the sidewalk as she hurried along the side of the street.

"Hey! Wait up," he said, jogging to her side. "Sorry about that. Can we have coffee? Lunch?"

Rukia looked to him in confusion, moving faster down the sidewalk. "No. Excuse me."

"Wait."

She didn't. Ichigo looked to the wedding ring she wore on the hand wrapped around the purse as she moved off.

"Before he died," he said loudly, "Milton York insisted I speak with you. R.L. Parker?"

Rukia stopped in her tracks, then turned to look back at him. "How do you know me?"

Ichigo grinned at her confusion, then stopped when she gave him a piercing, probing look. "Your grandfather was a client of mine. My name is Ichigo." He caught up with her, watching her dark eyes turn from quizzical to wary. He handed her a business card. She looked at it.

"Antique Furniture worldwide? You're an antiques dealer?" She frowned at the card.

"Ah, well..." Ichigo sighed. "You got a few minutes? Is lunch all right? Very public."

She watched him run a hand through his hair, thinking for a moment. "Well, coffee, I guess."

*****

They went to the nearest cafe on the low traffic street, a small, family-friendly place called Rosa's Grill, where they found a booth near the front. The waitress smiled at them, and took their order for coffee, and left them alone.

Ichigo returned Rukia's outright stare, watching her estimate him quietly. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, tapping it on the table. "Do you mind?"

She shook her head, looking to the leather jacket he wore on such a warm day. "You weren't mentioned in my Grandfather's papers."

"I hope not."

The waitress came back as he started to light a cigarette he'd pulled from the pack. "I'm sorry, sir. This is a no-smoking section," she said, smiling. "Would you like to be moved to a smoking section?"

"No. This is fine." Ichigo spared the waitress a look as she went back behind the counter. He stuck the cigarette in the box and stuffed it in his jacket pocket, glancing back at Rukia. "Actually, I never met your grandfather in person. He was a very smart man."

She watched him closely, hand on her purse, ready to bolt at any moment. "How do you know him?"

He grinned, hoping to put her at ease. It didn't work. She only sat back, misgivings rising.

"Listen, Mrs. Parker, when you go to the bank, take a large handbag with you and empty the box. Everything. Keep your back to the south wall camera." A look of alarm came over her face, and the spoke quickly. "Don't say anything while you're there. Turn in the key at the teller, and whatever you do, don't declare what you have, or take it to a jeweler."

Her fingers gripped the purse strap tighter. "A _jeweler_?"

He nodded. "If you need assistance with the box items, call the number on the card."

She looked at the card he'd given her. "How much furniture can there be in a deposit box?"

He shook his head.

She studied him for a moment, holding his attention. "What's in the box?"

He nodded, the grin hinting. "You'll see. Good luck." He stood up, put a five dollar bill on the table, and left out the front door.

Rukia watched him leave, then looked down at the money, and then the business card.

"Is he coming back, honey?" the waitress asked as she came up to the table with two coffees in her hands.

Rukia looked out the window of the cafe, but saw no sign of Ichigo. "Just leave the coffees."


	5. Chapter 5

The small cafe on the corner of Forty-Seventh and Oakland Streets was off the beaten path of most New York City eateries Daniel Scott and Vince frequented, which was what appealed most to Daniel. Long days in the stuffy investment firm offices and longer days on the phone with calls to clients unhappy with their long-term market yields were sapping all the strength from his prime-of-life body, and going home to his fiancée with news of market plunges was taxing any hope from their future.

"It's just the fluorescent lighting," Vince said as they settled at the counter where a portly waitress was looking tiredly to them. "You're twenty-four. You can't complain about the economy and retirement yet, Daniel."

Daniel pushed his blond hair back, getting comfortable on the stool, which certainly had been designed with blue-collar workers in mind. "I think we're being poisoned. All that talk about inflated stocks and --"

"That again?" Vince swore under his breath as the waitress came up to them, smiling a well-worn smile.

"Coffee, gentlemen?"

They both nodded as she gave them menus with one hand and placed to coffee mugs before them with the other. She reached behind her.

"Decaff of regular?"

Vince looked disappointedly at the carafes behind her on the coffee machine. "Kind of basic. Regular."

"Same," Daniel said.

"Next time I choose for lunch," Vince grumbled. He waited until the waitress had poured their coffees before he continued. "If your views get back to O'Keefe you'll catch hell. That snitch Crowley has been watching you."

Daniel shrugged as he tore open a packet of sugar and added it to his coffee. "Let him watch. Maybe he'll learn something."

"You're an advisor, Dan. We're supposed to believe in the system," Vince said, his voice lowering as he looked around the sparsely populated cafe. A few older men were at a booth by the door, a single man hunched over his coffee and a newspaper at a small table. "Clients will jump out the window at your talk."

Behind him, the man with the newspaper glanced their way, then back down to read, his interest piqued.

Daniel shook his head, tasting the strong coffee. He grimaced. "This is just the plain stuff. Real coffee." He shook his head as his fellow worker stirred a creamer into his own coffee. "You know it's a sham, Vince. Nothing is backed. All those commodities and numbers that look so good on the boards, you know half of it wouldn't come off the screen."

"So what?" Vince pulled the single laminated page menu closer to him, frowning over the selections listed. "What if you're right? As long as vendors treat it as real money, who cares? What would happen if everyone wanted hard assets only? We'd collapse. Half the firms in New York would collapse."

Daniel was looking at his own menu. "Maybe investors should be looking into hands-on, real valuables they can wrap their fingers around."

"It's called real estate."

"The rest isn't real? You know it's just a belief system."

Vince swallowed a gulp of coffee, making a face at the cup. "It's as real as the Federal Reserve wants it to be. Just abandon this tangible bullshit and stick to your screen stats, Danny-boy."

Daniel shook his head. "Not good enough."

The man at the table set down his newspaper, eyeing the two men at the counter. He left a few dollars on the table and slipped his hand into his off-the-rack trousers.

Vince glanced at the cook behind the counter. "We can do so much better than this, Daniel. Let's go."

Daniel was about to answer when the man from the table reached around him and put a business card near his coffee cup.

"Your best in tangible assets, my boy," he said, clapping a hand on the investor's shoulder.

Daniel turned to see the man. He was past middle age, a kindly look on his face. "Who're you?"

"Just paying it forward." The man nodded to Vince, and then made his way out the cafe door.

Daniel looked at the white card. "Antique Furniture Worldwide." He turned the card over to see it blank.

"What's that all about?" Vince looked at the unassuming card. "Some guy trying to sell furniture out his briefcase now?"

Daniel shrugged, tapping the card on the table. "Probably."

The waitress eased up to them with a smile. "Ready to order, gentlemen?"

* * *

Gin Ichimaru and Aizen made their way down the Division Five Headquarters hall to the interrogation room. Beneath Ichimaru's arm were tucked two folders, a change that would promise to irritate one of his best agents. Aizen didn't much like the sounds coming from the room ahead of them, primarily because they were coming from his partner.

"I can't believe Pauly's dirty, Ichimaru," he grumbled.

"Oh, he's dirty, Aizen," his superior said, nodding. "We've been watching him for months. Surprised he didn't compromise your raid on that auction last week. You've been assigned these." He handed Aizen the folders. "An analyst and a cutter. Now, about this rock runner you're working on, you think he's from one of the old jeweler families. You brought in the Kerns and Walters last year. Now who? Marzoff?"

Aizen shook his head, not wanting to even look at the files in his hand. "Kurosaki. Third largest family of jewelers in North America. In business for seventy-three years."

"Isshin Kurosaki died in a car accident, his wife in a house fire a year earlier."

Aizen nodded. "We never found the boy. A teen when we tried to get the Kurosaki client records.

Ichimaru sighed. "I remember now. What have you got on him? Favorite cities? Stones? Fellow cutters?"

Aizen didn't like to admit his lack of knowledge. "It's not ... No. None."

Ichimaru stopped, frowning at him. "He has no patterns?"

Aizen sighed. "Isshin Kurosaki dealt in everything, but his specialty was rare stones, ones few other jewelers could get. Some of those are resurfacing. The only real pattern would be getting his client records."

"Out of the question." Ichimaru scratched the back of his head, his usual attire of half-untucked uniform shirt giving him less than the accepted appearance of the head of D5. "The Kurosaki store and residence gave up nothing. Both were cleaned out."

"I think I know who did the cleaning. Barring the records, Isshin's son Ichigo Kurosaki is the only lead left, Gin. I think he's still in business."

"You think a fifteen year-old boy is worth the trouble? If he's still alive. Was a messy accident that took Isshin."

They both looked to the end of the hall where a loud outcry came from the last closed door.

Aizen looked back to Ichimaru. "He's alive and he's not fifteen now. Isshin Kurosaki's suppliers showed records of shipping over $6 million of stones in just the last year of operation. Without the client records or his son, I doubt we'll ever see much of it.

Ichimaru nodded. "What's it worth now?"

"Last month Sotheby's filed a report of a single patron trying to list $8 million in unwashed, unengraved, uninsured stones. The director said it was an old estate, purchased over ten years time from an Isshin Kurosaki before the IRS changes."

Ichimaru sighed, and they continued down the hall, Aizen dreading reaching the end. "How was one client worth that much?"

"Time and clean stones, Gin. Untraceable stones are worth four times the amount washed are. The patron claimed he bought the entire lot from Kurosaki for only $4,000."

Ichimaru whistled as they halted before the last door. Heavy panting came from inside. Aizen's face wore an uncharacteristic look of dismay.

"Four thousand on six mil, plus mark-up," Ichimaru said bemusedly, rubbing his chin.

Aizen looked him over. "You know, if you tucked yourself in and stopped smirking like you just ate the coal-miners' canary you'd probably get farther with that buxom lass in Field Combat."

Ichimaru grinned. "She's the _instructor_, Sousuke, and don't you forget it. And what makes you think I'm not making progress?"

"I've seen how she looks at you." Aizen's attention went back to the closed door as the low moaning got louder.

"That's all I know," Paul's labored voice came through meekly.

"Then let's go over it again," a deep voice threatened more than stated.

"Who're you using on him?" Aizen asked, not really wanting the answer.

"Grimmjow. You're talking about big numbers now, Aizen. I'm not convinced there are any Kurosakis still around." Ichimaru pounded on the door. "That's enough, Grimmjow. Out here a minute."

The door opened and Grimmjow filled it with a D5 uniform, his no-nonsense glare shifting slightly to something less severe as he looked to Aizen, and then Ichimaru. "Sir?"

Ichimaru gestured between the men a few times. "You know Grimmjow from Homeland Security Interrogation, Aizen. Didn't think you'd want to personally do Pauly's debrief, Sousuke. That's all, Grimmjow."

The bigger man nodded and left down the hall, unrolling his sleeve cuffs. Aizen glanced into the room through the partly opened door. He didn't like what he saw.

"We haven't debriefed one of our own so thoroughly in years, Gin. Was this necessary?"

Ichimaru shrugged, nodded, and shook his head. "Have to set an example, Aizen. This field has its temptations." He glanced to the folders in the agent's hand. "If you can find this Kurosaki, you tag him and we'll take it from there."

Aizen wasn't impressed. "Tag? He needs personal attention, Gin, not a slipped chip. By this time he's learned all --"

"Try the tag first," Ichimaru said, pushing the door wider. "Then we'll see."

* * *

Rukia approached the bank that blistering afternoon, this time with a larger purse, as Ichigo had suggested. She'd spent that few hours sorely confused, anxious, and with mounting nervousness and a little anticipation. Nothing in her life had ever made her heart skip a little faster than seeing that pile of polished stones in the deposit box.

She frowned as she passed through the bank doors. Actually, seeing that first ultrasound test, that dark hazy, striated image of her baby on the monitor -- _that_ had made her heartbeat quicken unlike anything before.

She swallowed down the memories and went to the bank teller at the counter. "I'd like to see Milton York's deposit box," she stammered, her large eyes belying her hesitation.

The teller smiled. "I remember you, Mrs. Parker. Go on through."

When Rukia got to the deposits room she was relieved to find it empty. With shaky hands she fit the key into Box 139, and pulled it out carefully. She kept her back to the wall camera, as Ichigo had instructed, and set the two pouches in the purse, a little surprised by the weight of them. She snapped the purse closed, and shut the box. She passed by the security guard with a quick wave, and exited the bank.

Once on the sidewalk she sighed in relief, and headed for her grandfather's farmhouse on the edge of town.

* * *

Daniel Scott sat at his desk later that day as most of the other staff had left. It was a newly acquired office, an upgrade from this spot on the cubicle grid. He'd worked hard to get it, shoving aside his personal feelings on the disingenuous fascia he presented to his clients and bosses. He regretted saying anything to Vince, but wanted to tell _someone_.

He moved the business card around on the desk, first to one side of the monitor that displayed his latest portfolio, and then to the other. He flipped it over for the third time, reading the precise penmanship again.

"_Danny-boy, hard assets at reasonable prices. Prospectus available. Astoria preferred. 9ALT-4 to confirm_."

That was it. The website listed on the furniture business card was a simple site, garish lettering advertising Bombe and Directoire style furniture from Europe. He'd already hit the keys on the keyboard, and the confirmation time of nine p.m. for that evening had popped up on a white screen, with the line _Due George_ at the bottom.

Daniel had quickly exited out of the site as a sudden paranoia had washed over him. He fingered the card, and then slipped it beneath a stack of reports on his desk as the office door opened.

Charles O'Keefe stepped in, his gruff demeanor sweating at the collar of his white shirt, his tie slightly askew as usual. He was a large man, and his ruddy complexion was more flushed than most days as he looked to Daniel with a fleshy smile.

Daniel stood up quickly. "Mr. O'Keefe, you're still here, sir?"

O'Keefe nodded. "Hmm, you, too?"

Daniel carefully straightened the papers on his desk, wondering at the supervisor's presence. "Uh, yes, sir. I had a few files to get ready for tomorrow."

O'Keefe put his large hands on his hips, breathing noisily. "How's the wife?"

Daniel bristled. "No wife, sir. I do have a fiancée."

The other man nodded. "Good. I like to see my employees happy. You are happy here, aren't you, Scott?"


	6. Chapter 6

Aizen headed down the hall to Analysis later that day, his resentful mood at Paulson's corruption verging on something more lethal. He hadn't seen it coming, and while it meant the Division would be looking at him more closely, it also meant he had new partners.

Never a good change.

He pushed through the door to Analysis and looked around at the chest high cubicle maze, the buzz and drone of phone-speak adding to his foul mood. It took a few moments of winding through the canals of cubicles and looking over the semi-walls before he found the name for which he was looking.

She didn't look up at him, her shiny black hair turned away, attention on the computer monitor before her. Aizen glanced at the file in his hand. She was a black woman in her early thirties, mid-level analyst, certified in knowledge status four. He cleared his throat.

She ignored him.

"Shoren Dayle-Tomason?"

Her eyes remained on the screen. "Put it on the stack."

Aizen reached over the side of the cubicle and clicked off the computer screen. She looked to him.

"Hey, I was working on that!"

"Now you're working on something else. I'm Sousuke Aizen. You're my partner now."

She made a face of disapproval. "What?"

"You heard me. Let's go get us a cutter.'

She didn't move. He shrugged, sighing. "Ichimaru assigned you to me."

"Bullshit." She crossed her arms, staring back at him, glancing at his identification tag. "I'm not Field. I'm busy. Get out of here."

"Come on."

Aizen started the trek out of the cubicle maze. It wasn't until he got to the door to the hall that Shoren caught up with him.

"Why me?" she asked as she hurried to match his strides.

"Don't know."

She brushed the wrinkles from her pants, straightening her gray shirt, mumbling. "I wasn't briefed."

"You can read up on it later." He glanced at her, frowning at the pout on her moderately attractive face, eyes dropping over her petit figure.

She scowled at him as they turned down the hall to the Photography Labs. "You know this isn't Faceting, right -- what's your name again?"

"Aizen."

"Yeah, well, this is Photography. You're looking for a cutter here?"

He nodded and opened the door marked Dark Rooms. Inside was the usual array of equipment, but Aizen went straight to the door at the right wall where a red light was on overhead. Behind him Shoren stood with her arms crossed, one foot tapping.

Aizen knocked on the door.

"Stay out!" a man yelled from inside.

Aizen pounded on the door until it opened a few inches and a man in his early twenties looked out. "What?"

"Are you Ryan Esparo?"

"Who are you?" Esparo's eyes dropped to the name tag Aizen wore. "Sir."

Aizen frowned at the man in front of him. Dark hair cut short, gelled to a spike, gray and slate uniform more tailored on his athletic build than most he'd seen. "You're GIA certified?"

Esparo grinned, opening the door a few more inches. "Yeah. Working on my EGL, too."

"I'm your new partner now." He handed a file to the younger man.

"Field? All right!" Esparo emerged from the dark room.

Aizen stuck another file into Shoren's reluctant hands. "Esparo, this is Thomason, your other partner. Learn this file. It's our target. Be ready in the morning."

Aizen abruptly left the lab room, leaving Shoren and Esparo to look at each other.

She groaned, and then looked to Esparo's face, which was giddy with anticipation as he flipped through the file. "Ready for what?"

* * *

Daniel Scott arrived at the Astoria Hotel ten minutes to nine that night. It wasn't _the_ Astoria New York City was known for; a lesser but elegant hotel that had gained notoriety of a sort by being confused with the grander landmark. It made Daniel a little more comfortable as he headed to the bar in the lounge and sat at the counter.

The bar was surprisingly empty for the time of night, and the few people at the bar were on the other side of the room, huddled in corners in pairs.

For a few moments Ichigo watched Daniel Scott at the counter, sizing him up, knowing the type from a dozen other meetings.

Frustrated accountant, small-time broker, insurance adjuster.

It was always the same. Of the few contacts that Ichigo had developed a trust with over the last five years, it had always been this type in New York. He watched the man look around nervously. It looked like George's work, to Ichigo.

He smashed out the cigarette he'd only half smoked, and got up and crossed the room as Daniel ordered himself a drink and put the furniture business card in front of him on the counter.

Ichigo stood beside him, eyes on the card. "Are you looking for antiques?"

Daniel looked to him quickly, surprised to see someone of his own age. "No. I -- George sent me. You know him?"

Ichigo nodded. "I know him." He waited as the bartender set Daniel's drink before him and left before nodding to the corner table at which he'd been sitting. "Join me."

They settled on either side of the small table and Ichigo reached into his shirt pocket for his cigarettes. "You're looking for various investments?"

Scott nodded. "I'm not interested in antique furniture."

"Well, I don't sell it." He found a lighter in his twill pants pocket and lit the cigarette, promising himself for the fiftieth time he'd quite. Again. "Have you considered gemstones?"

Daniel frowned. "Like diamonds?"

Ichigo nodded. "Like diamonds, and other stones."

"I don't know." Daniel shrugged, turning the glass of Scotch in his hand. "I was thinking about precious metals or coins."

"Bad idea."

"Oh?"

_It's was the same in every city, big or small,_ Ichigo thought. "Each investment coin minted in the last twenty years has a tracking chip embedded in it. The American Gold eagles, Canadian Maple Leafs, Swiss Olympics, all of them. Government knows how much you have, where your have it, even if you don't use a deposit service. The IRS has been requiring forms from coin dealers since 1983. Same with bullion. And everything post-1933 is open to confiscation by Uncle Sam."

Daniel shook his head, downing half his drink. "I don't know anything about gemstones."

Neither spoke as a man and woman dressed for a night on the town passed by the table. Ichigo watched the couple move out of earshot.

"Well, you can compound your investment if you sold to the right person," he said, taking a drag on the cigarette he'd neglected.

Daniel looked at him sharply. "Nothing dirty."

Ichigo grinned at the irony. "Quite the opposite. A simple exchange."

Daniel considered this for a moment, studying the man across the table from him. "I'd like to see them first."

"Of course."

Daniel nodded. "When?"

Ichigo finished his drink. "The Five A.M Diner on Fifty-Third, at ten tomorrow morning. Cash only, and bring a lot of it."

* * *

Aizen tossed the stapled stack of papers onto the table with the other two stacks the next morning. It was difficult enough finding clean, unwashed gemstones with a knowledgeable partner like Paulson, and nearly impossible with two new recruits.

_Like these,_ he thought, looking at Esparo and Shoren at the table in the briefing room. Not an ounce of field experience between them, and he was granted permission to track down one of the largest, most lucrative targets of his career. _Damn Paulson,_ he thought.

And Ichimaru for assigning them to him.

Shoren was looking at the six names highlighted on her stack of papers. Her eyes lingered on the name of Daniel Scott. "Go where the stones would. Look for Kurosaki's next client. It'll lead right to him."

"Eventually," Esparo added.

Aizen shook his head, glancing at the names highlighted on the top paper. "You know how to do that, Thomason?"

She tapped the first name that was yellowed over. "We know he was trying to list with Sotheby's --"

"His former client was trying to list untreated stones with Sotheby's," Aizen reminded.

Esparo sat back from the table and set his feet up on the side, looking over the stack of paper he held. Aizen gave him a sour look, which he didn't see. His eyes narrowed at the younger man. He knew exactly how this guy was going to be. The meticulously trimmed sideburns, new haircut, the smile he kept forcing on Shoren, the eager-for-all-the-wrong-reasons attitude. He'd seen it all before, but never had to work with it.

"Off the table, Esparo."

Esparo looked up from his papers, and set his feet back on the floor. "A lot of stones trickle out of New York. Some right through our own fingers. There was a guy in the Division last week --"

"We know about Paulson," Aizen snapped, throwing him a dirty look before turning his attention on Shoren. "Go for the client, eh? Get me taps on every line coming off those six names. How soon can you do it?"

She took a moment to check the addresses on the page. "We can do the offices from here. Run the A.N.I. and see if anything pops up."

"Give her a hand, Ryan. You've got thirty minutes."

* * *

Ichigo sat in the Five A.M. Diner at a booth that overlooked the parking lot. He'd had his third cup of coffee by 10:15, and had checked his watch every two minutes since 10:05.

No sign of Daniel Scott.

_Another no-show,_ he thought, draining the cup. He looked to the waitress at the counter, who'd been eyeing him since he'd attempted smoking in what he'd learned was a smoke-free establishment. _Last time I use this place_, he thought, returning half a grin to the waitress as a phone rang from deeper within the cafe.

Ichigo glanced around at the two old men at another booth in the corner, the only other patrons of the cafe.

"Hey," the waitress called to him from the counter. "Are you Ichigo?"

He nodded, getting out of the booth and meeting her at the counter. "What's up?"

"Some guy on the phone for you." She put her hands on her bony hips, making her angular collarbones jut out above her pink blouse. She nodded to a phone set at the back of the counter. "Make it quick. It ain't a public phone."

_Dammit_, Ichigo thought. "Yeah, thanks." He rounded the counter and picked up the receiver. "I'm here." It was Daniel Scott on the other end of the line. Ichigo listened for a moment. "Yeah, you're not here ... Okay. I'll be there."

* * *

At the same moment across the city, Shoren and Esparo had just completed their phone taps on the six names highlighted on the list from the earlier meeting with Aizen. Shoren sat at what was to become her new desk, across from Esparo's desk, with Aizen's facing the sides of theirs in the Field Dispatch unit among the collection of three other agents. The first readout lurched out of the printer at Shoren's desk.

"Hey, we got something already," Esparo said, glancing to where Aizen was hunkered over the Kurosaki file at his own desk. Esparo leaned across his and Shoren's desks to see the paper in her hands. "Daniel Scott's line. A call to the Five A.M. Diner."

Shoren frowned at him hovering over her. "A little space here, Ryan."

He only nodded. Aizen looked to her. "Where to?"

Shoren's eyes scanned the short dialogue between the diner and the office building. "Fifty-Third and Wall. Uh, not much, but they're meeting at a parking structure just outside Scott's investment firm. Twenty minutes."

Aizen nodded, dropping the file and standing. "Let's go."

* * *

Ichigo wound the rental car up and through the second floor of the parking structure ten minutes later. He hated the parking facilities. They were limiting, trapping, and hard to maneuver while in a hurry. He frowned at the rows of cars, checking the numbers on the elevators, until he came to the one Daniel Scott had specified.

He parked a section away and took the long way back, seeing no one else on the level, satisfied it would remain relatively inactive until noon when the lunch hour broke. He found the elevator and stepped in, relieved it was empty, and pushed the buttons for the fourth floor. A moment later the doors opened and Daniel looked in at him, nervously, from the fourth level parking.

The advisor quickly entered the elevator and pushed a button. The doors slid closed, and Ichigo looked to him.

"Couldn't get to the diner. Do you have them?" Daniel asked.

"Yeah." Ichigo nodded and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. He unwrapped the cloth to reveal three almost black stones, and one that was a pinkish-orange.

Daniel groaned, frowning at the gemstones. "They're ugly."

Ichigo chuckled. "You wanted investment stones, not gifts."

"I do. What are they?" He pushed the orange stone with his finger.

"The orange are padparadscha sapphire. A little under three carats total weight. "$18,300 for the three."

Daniel took his hand away as if burned. "_$18,000?"_

Ichigo nodded. "Yeah." He separated the black stone from the others on the cloth. "This is an alexandrite. Half carat." He took a penlight from his jean pocket and shone it on the dark stone. It shone a luminous blue-green. He flicked another switch on the flashlight and the stone turned a bright red-purple. "Not as muddy as it looks. Changes in incandescent and fluorescent lights."

"Huh." Daniel nodded, watching the stone. "I thought they'd look...better."

Ichigo grinned. "They're all EGL quality. That's the European version of the Gemological Institute of America. These are the money-makers. Get a little money first, then buy some pretty toy stones."

Daniel nodded. "Toy stones."

The elevator reached the ground floor and the doors opened. Daniel pushed another button and the doors slid shut again.

"How much for all four stones?"

Ichigo nodded. "Twenty-five-two."

Daniel considered the stones for a long moment. "You said I can't take them to a jeweler. What am I supposed to do with them?"

"I'll give you the address of a gentleman who is looking for this quality of stones. Sell to him."

Daniel looked to him suspiciously. "What kind of profit can I expect?"

Ichigo shrugged. "Between $40,000 and $60,000."

Daniel stared at him for a moment, shaking his head and stepping back a foot as he warily eyed Ichigo. "Then why don't you sell them?"

"I've got others to sell. Spread the wealth."

Daniel looked at the stones in the handkerchief for a long moment as the elevator slowed, and then reached into his shirt pocket.

* * *

Aizen sat back in the seat of the van, watching Shoren in the seat behind him in the rear view mirror as she fidgeted with her ear bud that kept falling out. They watched the elevator in the parking structure Daniel Scott had indicated to his caller earlier that morning, but weren't sure if they'd missed their target, who could well be the last member of the Kurosaki jewelling family. From their location two sections away from the elevator near where Scott had parked his cream colored Lexus they had a good view of the elevator.

"You don't need it yet," he told her as she cursed lowly at the earpiece for the third time. "Just when we're on the street."

"How'd I get picked for field work?"

He shrugged, then looked over to Esparo in the seat next to him. "Lucky, I guess."

Esparo looked to him, smoothing his hair back, angling his head at Aizen.

"Stop checking your hair in my glasses, Esparo," Aizen muttered, snapping off the mirrored sunglasses and looking back to the elevator.

Esparo shrugged and followed his gaze. "I thought something more low profile, for field work, you know." He looked to Shoren. "What do you think?"

Shoren gave his new haircut a brief glimpse. "I like it."

Aizen shook his head, eyes locked on the elevator. "Show pony."

The elevator doors opened and Aizen put his glasses back on. "That could be him," he said as Ichigo stepped out of the elevator.

The elevator doors slid shut. Esparo frowned. "There was someone else in the elevator. What about him?"

"Could be anyone," Aizen said, turning the key in the ignition. "Too far away to tell." They watched Ichigo make his way to the next section of parked vehicles. "Shoren, get us a photo of Daniel Scott."

"Will do."

* * *

Ichigo scowled at the rental car. _Drab gray sedan,_ he thought. He hated rental cars. He could never remember what his current one looked like, and in a parking structure they all looked like possibilities. He unlocked the two-door model and got in and started the engine. One sale down for the day. Scott may be a keeper, if he could follow a few directions.

He turned in his seat and backed the car out of the space, and then faced front again and shifted into forward. When he looked up a black van was nearing, and nearing too fast to attempt driving around. He frowned at the man behind the steering wheel, and then at the younger one in the passenger seat. Something clicked wrong in Ichigo's mind, and he abruptly flung the shifter into reverse again.

He stomped on the accelerator and the car screeched into reverse. He hitched an arm around the seat back, turning the steering wheel sharply around a row of cars, sparing only a quick glance at the van in front of the car, inches away from the grill.

"What the hell's this all about?" he bit out, wincing as the car barely missed another parked car as the rental gained speed and snaked through the lower level. He headed for the entrance on the ground level, dodging another SUV pulling from a parking space.

At the entrance the exit rail was down, and the entrance had a car in it. Ichigo swerved into the exit lane, clipping a wheel rim on the curb, and crashed through the rail and out into the side street traffic. His foot moved to the brake as his hand shifted the transmission into neutral, and maneuvered a passable J-hook, into oncoming traffic. He turned the steering wheel to avoid collision, and careened into the proper lane of traffic, cutting off two cars and a taxi.

His hands were tight on the wheel, one foot smashed on the accelerator, as he looked into the rear view lane to see the black van behind him bottled up in traffic just outside the parking structure.

"Who the hell was that?" he mumbled, scowling over the slower moving traffic before him. "Too old to be punks." His cell phone rang, and he took a moment to fish it out of the pocket of his jacket in the passenger seat. ignoring the irate taxi driver in the lane beside him. He frowned at the number displayed on the phone, then clicked it on. "Hello?"

Rukia's voice came over the line. "_I want to talk to you."_

It took Ichigo a moment to realize who the caller was. "Mrs. Parker?"

"_Yes. I've been to three different jewelry stores and no one sells loose stones. What am I supposed to do with these?"_

"Uh, we can talk tomorrow. How's that for you?"

"_How about Rosa's Bar and Grill?"_

Ichigo tried to remember the shops he'd seen across from the bank several days ago. "How's three-thirty for you?"

There was a slight pause. "_Okay. I'll be there. I want some answers."_

"Sure."


	7. Chapter 7

Ichigo had just gotten out of the shower that evening when his cell phone rang. He hitched the towel up around his hips better, swearing as he rummaged through his pants tossed on the floor, locating the ringing device by the fifth ring.

"Yes," he said into it, dripping onto the moderately-priced hotel's taupe carpet.

"Hey, Scott here," the voice said. "How much for a toy now?"

"Right now?" Ichigo combed his wet hair back with one hand, succeeding in sending longer drips of water down his back.

"Tomorrow morning."

"That's fast. Did you take care of the first items already?" Ichigo looked around for his cigarettes and lighter, scowling when he didn't find either on the bed or table.

"Yes. No problem. The name you gave me -- that guy was anxious to take anything padparadscha."

Ichigo nodded, gave up on the cigarettes, and sat on the bed side, trying not to drip. "What're you looking for in a toy?"

"Green, or gold. Something bright."

"We can do that. How much?"

"Two stones, at least. Ten or fifteen thousand."

Ichigo leaned across the bed and pulled his briefcase closer and took a moment to work the digital lock. Inside he sorted through the small plastic bags and gold envelopes, looking inside several. "Okay, Scott, that price would get you small irradiated diamonds of those colors, or traditional emeralds and golden beryl."

He frowned at the contents of one small envelope, shaking it until the emeralds inside slid out. He unwrapped the diamond paper from around several stones and held them between his fingers against the overhead light. Each about two carats, he estimated.

"Irradiated? Sounds like something grown in a lab," Scott said. "I guess I'll go with the traditional ones." There was a pause. "Are you there?"

Ichigo nodded, cradling the phone against his neck to his ear so he could use both hands to wrap the stones. "I'm here. Are you a Mets fan?"

Scott chuckled. "When they're doing good."

"There's a game tonight." Ichigo stuck the wrapped gemstones back in the small envelope and began putting them into the briefcase. "There's a non-working phone at Gate B that'll have your merchandise in it tonight. Check the change return. Don't worry, it'll be marked out-of-order. The stones will be in an envelope there. Bring a ball glove."

"Tonight?" Scott's voice held reservations.

Ichigo shrugged, nearly unseating the phone at his ear. "Yup. I'm going out of town in the morning."

"What about the money?"

Ichigo's hand rested on one of the heavier small envelopes, and he pulled it closer, shaking it gently. The contents rattled. "Leave the money in the change return. Large bills, rolled, in a film canister. You know, the old ones. Can you get one?"

Scott chuckled. "Yes, I think I can find one."

Ichigo scowled suddenly, focusing on the call. "Hey, and I'll know if you try to make off without dropping the money, Scott. You won't see me, but I'll be there."

"Okay, okay. How much?"

Ichigo shook the envelope onto the bed, frowning. "I'll get the details to you in..." He looked to the clock bolted to the wall. "Half an hour. And come to the locker alone, Scott."

"Okay."

The line clicked and Ichigo shut off the phone and tossed it aside to give the single item from the envelope more attention. He held the gold locket up, turning it to see the emerald cabochon, and then looked to the work tag attached to the chain.

"Kuchiki," he read, squinting at the name written in his father's sketchy penmanship. He pulled the briefcase closer and found the loupe and another custom made lens set in a handle.

He held the lens over the emerald. Beneath the small glass the emerald appeared to be slightly checked, proving it was unwashed by the mandatory chemical bath required by legal stones. "Okay, Kuchiki, you rebel," he said, grabbing his laptop from under the pillow and opening it, "let's see where you are now."

He spent a moment finding the file on Robert Kuchiki, which had minimal listings. "Robert Kuchiki, occasional transport for the Midwest. One purchase, grade A emerald," he read, frowning. "No address."

He sighed and looked at the locket photo. A small dark-haired girl stared back at him, a timid smile on her face, the photo too small and grainy to determine many details. He grinned back at the school picture.

"Sorry, sweetie," he said, wrapping the locket in the soft diamond paper and putting it inside the small envelope, wondering how long his father had had the piece of jewelry. "I have no idea where your daddy is." He replaced the envelopes in the briefcase and closed the laptop.

He set the envelope containing the loose golden beryl and emeralds on the small table near the television stand with the loupe and lens, his mind still on the girl in the locket. Lots of gemstones and clients had slipped through the cracks of the Kurosaki jewelling business since the overhaul that claimed his father's life.

He scowled and finished drying off with the towel, making his orange hair stick up in belligerent tufts. The overhaul hadn't directly taken his parents' lives, but Ichigo knew who was responsible. He wasn't sure which of the nameless alphabet agencies had a direct hand in the house fire or car accident.

He held them all equally responsible.

* * *

As the opening pitch was crossing home plate that evening, Aizen and Esparo were letting themselves into Daniel Scott's more than modest apartment across the city. The younger agent looked around at the sable brown leather furniture, the abstract art hanging from the beige walls, the chrome appliances and bar stools at the kitchen counter. The living room was decorated half lower echelon art gallery, half avant-garde museum trinket.

Aizen looked past these and to the view of the city lights blinking on outside the living room window.

"I hate these prissy kinds," Esparo said, lowering a glare at the artwork. "All show and no go."

Aizen shook his head, knowing his new partner wouldn't like the correlations he was drawing inside his head. "Just because you can't appreciate art doesn't mean it's less meaningful."

Esparo put his hands on his hips, the edge of his duster nearly knocking am African god statue off the glass coffee table. He righted it and looked back to the wall. He cocked his head to one side, frowning at the painting of angular lines and garish colors. "I can appreciate art, but this ain't it."

Aizen went to the black and chrome desk near the leather sofa and pulled out the single drawer. "We're looking for his finances. Check the freezer."

Esparo was about to question why, but decided against it. Instead he headed into the sparsely furnished kitchen.

Aizen flicked on the computer screen and took a moment to find Scott's bank files. He jotted down the names of the banking institutions on a small pad of paper and turned off the screen. "Anything?"

Esparo closed the freezer. "Shit, this guy's boring. Winter blend vegetables, poached cod in lemon sauce, and butter-pecan ice cream."

Aizen knelt and felt beneath the desk's underside. He smiled, feeling the envelope taped there. "I've got it." He stood and carefully opened the envelope which was only folded, flap tucked. He nodded as Esparo joined him. He thumbed through the thick layer of money inside, counting swiftly.

"Fifty-three thousand," Aizen said, stuffing the money back into the envelope. "Looks like Mr. Scott has been dealing something on the side." He knelt and taped the envelope back under the desk and then stood.

"You're just going to leave it here?" Esparo asked incredulously.

Aizen nodded and reached into the pocket of his long coat for the notepad. He ripped off a page, handing it to Esparo. "Call those in to Shoren when we get back and we'll take a look at what he's been putting in the bank. See what our disgruntled investor has been dabbling in."

Esparo glanced at the financial names on the paper. "His name was high on the list."

Aizen's cell phone rang and he answered it. He listened for a moment as Esparo gave the room another skeptical look. He snapped the phone closed and sighed. "Shoren says we've got the rest of our taps and traces on the names, full taps on Scott, and a dozen Homeland Security plainclothes at the Shea."

Esparo gave the bamboo fertility goddess statue on the slate fireplace hearth a puzzling look. "These unhappy accountants, like this Scott guy, this is what they do? Trade illegal stones on the side?"

Aizen nodded as they made their way to the door, pass key in hand. "Too smart to buy gold, too scared to deal drugs." He looked to the other oil paintings on either side of the fireplace. "Gemstones are portable and the unwashed ones are nearly undetectable. A perfect market for Scott, and with as few dealers still in the business who will trade illegal stones, Scott could very well lead us to what's left of the Kurosaki family. Padparadscha sapphires are rare, and unwashed pads are even rarer." He glinted a smile at thoughts of the remaining Kurosaki prospect. "If Scott's source isn't Ichigo Kurosaki or of the Marzoff family, he's close to one of them."

Esparo shrugged, the magnitude of Aizen's words not fully appreciated.

Aizen decided to appeal to the younger man's baser instincts. "Come on. We've got a Mets game to catch."

* * *

Late evening was strolling damply across the backyard by the time Michael returned home from work. The house was oddly quiet as he let himself in, something he hadn't had to do in months, as Rukia was always home to greet him, door open, smells of dinner coming from the kitchen, radio playing lowly.

He didn't like coming home to an empty house, and had looked forward to the day a small pair of toddling feet would meet him at the back door. That hadn't happened.

Instead it had been a girl named Dusty down at the bar. That had happened.

He decided not to think about the dent in his marriage. Rukia was over it; so was he. Done and over. Moving on.

He set his lunch box on the counter in the kitchen and tried to remember Rukia's instructions on where to find dinner while she was gone. He opened the refrigerator door and looked in as a knock came to the back screen door. Michael looked over the refrigerator door to see Ambra on the porch, a white French casserole dish in her hands.

"Hello, hello," she said with a warm smile, raising one shoulder above her lime green sundress. "Overtime, hmm?" She held up the dish, peeking through the screen. "A little overdone, but hell, still edible."

He shut the refrigerator door and opened the screen door. "Come on in, Ambra." He held the screen open as she passed through, the ruffle on her sleeve brushing his chest, smelling of suntan lotion.

She placed the casserole dish on the counter, and then turned to him. "Long day?"

He eyed the dish, shrugging.

She blew a strand of deep auburn hair from her eyes. "Too hot to be working so hard. I thought you might be hungry after all those hours."

He nodded. "Thanks for the thought, Ambra, but Rukia cooked enough to last me the week. I just have to remember to thaw it out."

She raised an eyebrow. "Need help defrosting it?" She giggled lightly. "I'm a real whiz at microwaving."

"Thanks, anyway." He reached for the refrigerator door as she stepped in front of it.

"A week, hmm?" She looked up at him expectantly for a brief moment, smile verging on becoming something else. "Thaw it out tomorrow. No sense in letting an innocent stroganoff go to waste."

He chuckled and stepped away to the counter. The casserole did smell good. Much better than the frozen Tupperware still in the refrigerator. "Take it home for Larry."

She smiled wider. "Larry's out of town. As usual." She took a step toward him, eyes on the navy t-shirt beneath the red and gray plaid button up he'd thrown on over top.

Michael avoided her when she closed the short space between them. He'd seen that look before, let himself get trapped once before while in a half-drunken and susceptible state of mind, in which he'd deliberately continued for several months before Rukia had gotten wind of the affair.

He nodded to the casserole dish. "Thanks for the thought."

Ambra's gaze lifted to the cupboards before her eyes went to the bottom ones. "Where does Rita keep the plates?" She bent over at the waist, opening a lower cupboard under the sink, giving the drain board a smile.

Michael watched her, eyes on the green sundress skirt facing him. "Not there. It's Rukia, not Rita." His eyes followed as she straightened and brushed at the dress to remove non-existent wrinkles. "I can find dinner, Ambra."

She shrugged, giving him a flirty smile. "If you think so. Enjoy it. There's more where that came from." She tossed a look at the casserole, then back to him. "Bye-bye, Mikey."

She left out the screen door. He watched her go, crossing their small yards to her own porch, where she scooped up the cat that was waiting for her.

He shook his head. "Mikey."


	8. Chapter 8

After spending the last half of the Mets game watching nonfunctioning pay phones at Shea Stadium with D5 and Homeland Security agents posted at various locations, Aizen and Esparo had to call it a night. A fruitless night.

The only redeeming news came from Shoren the next morning at Division headquarters, where she waved a few papers at them across from her desk, smiling triumphantly through the room milling with agents.

"The good news," she began as Aizen and Esparo crowded around her desk, "is that we know he's bouncing signals through the University of Missouri and a Pennsylvania apartment. The bad news, is that the University traces it down to a runaway program that pops up every so often, and the Pennsylvania state trooper who looked into the apartment found nothing. Nada."

Aizen took the papers from her and skimmed over the first page. The apartment was leased under the name Kent Smith. No phone number. The apartment leased was paid annually, up to date, but the landlord hadn't seen his tenant in months. He flipped a page as Shoren continued.

"The rental car we followed was under the name John Horton." She lifted one shoulder as Esparo leaned over her chair to see her computer monitor better. She gave him a dismissive look and turned back to Aizen. "It doesn't check out either. Paid in cash, held by a credit card in the same name by one of those vanity banks."

Esparo shrugged, reading the computer screen. "We keep on Scott and we'll find whoever he's working with."

"Doesn't mean it'll be Kurosaki," Shoren said.

"With the stones Scott's dealing?" Esparo nodded. "Not many padparadscha roaming the streets, Shoren."

Aizen sighed as his underlings quibbled. The room was crowded with desks clustered in sets designated by partnership, spots of noise rising and falling of fellow agents around him. Now it was Shoren and Esparo's desks pushed to his. He looked to Ichimaru's office divided by glass walls across the room. The day would come that it would be his office, Aizen knew. Captain Ichimaru wouldn't stay in the New York Division Five office much longer; he'd already made his preference known for the Los Angeles location. Aizen had been well on his way to his own captaincy and knew Ichimaru would vouch for him.

Except for Paulson's indiscretion.

That had set Aizen back, and he knew it.

Ichimaru's scowling face looked out from the office's open doorway, spotting Aizen and partners. "You three," he snapped, "in here now."

Shoren and Esparo followed Aizen through the busy room and into their superior's office. It was the same as always, a jumble of papers and files, everything out of place but in needful reach. The computer was turned off, as was Ichimaru's custom. Everyone knew how much he hated computers.

"Leave it open," Ichimaru said as Aizen started to close the door. He sat behind the desk and leaned back in the chair. "What happened last night?"

"We lost him," Aizen said simply.

"Kurosaki? You found him and you lost him?"

Aizen shook his head. "Daniel Scott."

Ichimaru chuckled. "You lost an _accountant_?"

Esparo and Aizen looked to each other.

"You had half a dozen HS behind you and you lost him?" Ichimaru grinned.

"We think the drop location was changed at the last moment," Aizen said in defense. Esparo looked at him with apparent doubt.

"It's the only explanation," Aizen said. "Scott didn't cross our field of vision during the last half of the game. Either the time or location of the drop was changed."

"Or made before you got there," Ichimaru added, his grin sharpening on Aizen.

Shoren looked between each of the men but remained silent.

Aizen nodded after a moment. "Or that."

Ichimaru leaned forward and picked up what appeared a random piece of paper from the desk, glancing only briefly at it. "What about this Kent Smith or John Horton?"

"The names don't check out," Esparo said.

Ichimaru's eyes narrowed on him. "Then get me something that _does_ check out, Spiranzo."

Esparo wanted to correct his superior, but Aizen shook his head at him.

"Captain Ichimaru, why am I on this project?" Shoren asked, crossing her arms. "I'm not even range qualified."

Aizen and Esparo both looked to her with surprise.

Ichimaru shrugged. "You wanted Field. Get qualified."

"I didn't request a transfer out of Analysis," she pushed. "The request was made by one Orihime Inoue."

Ichimaru frowned. "So where's Inoue?"

Shoren gave her partners an annoyed look. "While some of us were running about watching broken payphones I looked that up. Agent Inoue is on loan to Civilian Disarmament for three months. Somehow the last two digits of our badge numbers got transposed on the transfer form." She looked to Aizen. "You got the wrong file."

Ichimaru stood up. "Put in a request to transfer out, Thomason, but until then you're working with Aizen and Spiranzo." He glanced to the doorway where Rangiku Matsumoto loitered, stepping to one side as the occupants of the room caught sight of her.

"Get your tag placed and find out if it's Kurosaki," Ichimaru said to Aizen, attention slipping from the conversation. "That's all."

Shoren and Esparo nodded and left the room, but Ichimaru motioned Aizen to remain. "Tag him and follow him," he told him. "We'll see after that."

Aizen shook his head. "I still think he'll run."

Ichimaru nodded. "Of course he'll run, if he knows. Be discreet. If it's him he'll lead you right to his clients." He glanced to the doorway. "I'm taking a long weekend. You've got use of any manpower or equipment you need, Aizen, but I don't want him brought in just yet. If he's like his old man he ain't going to talk."

"We can make him talk," Aizen promised.

"Follow him first." Ichimaru straightened his gray shirt and combed his hair with his fingers, and then waved Matsumoto in. "Maybe pay that accountant a visit, get him to enlighten you. Got it?"

Aizen nodded, sizing up the shapely combat instructor as she gave him a cursory look. "Enjoy your weekend, Captain."

Ichimaru grinned at Matsumoto approaching his desk before looking back to Aizen. "Oh, and get that Thomason woman range-qualified before she shoots one of you in the back."

* * *

Rukia slid into a booth at Rosa's Bar and Grill that afternoon, choosing one against the wall in sight of the counter. She straightened her plum skirt of wrinkles, pulling at her lilac tank top that was damp with the day's humidity. She pushed her dark hair back from her face, enjoying the restaurant's central air after a hot night in York's house. It had taken her well into the evening the day before to find the box fan in the large house's basement.

It wasn't that she had misgivings about meeting the man she'd agreed to. Not many misgivings, anyway. She eased her conscience that had begun to play games with her morals.

Why she hadn't called Michael with the news of the gemstones, she wasn't sure. Why she had agreed to meet Ichigo-with-no-last-name she wasn't sure either. She tapped her fingers on the table, playing with the edge of the napkin, the perspiring glass of ice water making dripping impressions on the speckled table attached to the wall.

After all, if she got more out of York's inheritance than the will promised, Michael would be pleased. He'd overlook her blameless meeting with another man. After all, she'd looked beyond his indiscretion.

Her fingertips tightened on the napkin, scrunching it into a white wrinkle of cheap paper.

But it still hurt. Michael had said all the right things, done all the _steps_ in regaining trust, as outlined by the church's free marriage counseling meetings, but it didn't erase the lingering doubt.

"Hello, Mrs. Parker."

Ichigo's voice jolted Rukia's thoughts from their lapse into semi-misery. She looked up and offered a slight smile. "Hi. It's Rukia."

"Rukia."

She nodded as he gestured to the opposite booth bench seat. He glanced at the table, not seeing an ashtray.

"You went to the deposit box?"

She nodded and paused before saying more as the waitress came up to their table.

She looked to each of them, a smile on her tired face. "Something from the bar to start off?"

Rukia nodded. "Vodka martini."

"Make it two," Ichigo said.

"Be right back." The waitress left, and Rukia tried to still her trembling fingers.

Ichigo grinned at her clenched hands. "Calm down, Rukia. York didn't steal the stones.'

Her eyes widened. "You know? You've got to be criminal. My grandfather wouldn't have anything to do with counterfeiting, or money-laundering, or --"

"Whoa, who, keep it down," he said, casting a cautionary look to the next occupied table halfway across the room. "I'm not a counterfeiter or money-launderer."

"Then why all the secrecy?" she asked pointedly.

"Those stones aren't your average jewelry store rocks," he said, then waited as the waitress reappeared with their drinks. When she was gone he nodded to Rukia's glass. "You're going to want to drink some of that first."

She sipped the clear liquid, making a face at the strong liquor. "Start talking."

He shrugged lopsidedly. "Since the IRS overhaul, the government has increasingly demanded all assets be counted as income. They do this in a variety of ways. Some not so nice. Taxes, duty forms, what you've got in the bank and buried in the back yard." He searched the surrounding tables. Not an ashtray in sight. "Why do you think they reissue new banknotes so often?"

A frown replaced some of the skepticism in her face. "To track drug dealers and counterfeiters."

It was the answer he'd expected. "Straight from the Congressman's mouth. But so often? It doesn't work. Hong Kong prints better quality fake bills than our actual currency within weeks of the changeover. It's a smokescreen, Rukia. Another excuse to trace money, which they'll never admit to. As soon as they find a way to trace a valuable, like money or precious metals, someone else finds a way to get past it."

Rukia didn't like what she was hearing. The waitress returned with an expectant look on her face.

"Ready to order?"

Rukia shook her head, watching Ichigo take a long drink from his glass, watching her steadily. "I don't want anything."

Ichigo shook his head too, and the waitress left.

He leaned over the table, voice lowering. "Listen, Rukia, ten years back the newest negotiable instrument taxpayers had to report was gemstones. Problem was, the government had no way to check on unreported stones. They tried to confiscate every jeweler's client records, but some stones still went unreported. They tried to coerce people into registering stones on tax forms, nut they had no concrete way of actually checking. Well, now they've got a way, and they do enforce penalties."

"But these stones were never reported," she said slowly. "Grandpa's attorney knew nothing of them."

"Did you tell anyone about them?"

"No."

"Don't."

"They never even asked about them at the bank," she recalled, fingers tracing the martini glass. "I just walked out." Trepidation seeped into her eyes. "I think I'm in a lot of trouble. I can't even take them to a jeweler?"

He shook his head, but not in answer. "Jewelers are required to report all untraceable stones, such as yours."

She sighed shallowly. "Then they're worthless."

"No. Right now every store-bought stone is coated with an invisible chemical wash that makes them show up on script scanners. That's how they find the stones at airports, banks, wherever. The same scanners that read the magnetic strips in the paper money and chips in the investment coins."

She shook her head. "They had a scanner at the bank. Nothing happened." She rested her elbows on the table and gave him a shrewd look. "Maybe they're not real."

He chuckled. "Oh, they're real." He stood up. "Come on. I'll show you."

Ichigo paid for their drinks and they headed outside and down the sidewalk. He looked at the signs overhead of the town's main street, seeing the usual barber shop, antiques stores, bakery, and finally a small jeweler's storefront.

He looked down to Rukia, her gaze on the velvet beds in the window display cases that housed jewelry of all sorts and prices.

He moved her to one side of the store's door, feeling her flinch at his casual touch. "Do you have a pair of sunglasses?"

She nodded and reached into her purse to retrieve them.

He took his wallet from his back pocket and found a small thin film of clear plastic. "Put this in one lens," he told her.

Rukia had her doubts, but slipped the film in one lens of the darkened glasses.

"Okay, put them on, and keep them on in the store. You'll see what I'm talking about." He watched her violet eyes be eclipsed by the large sunglasses. "Ready?"

She nodded.

Inside the store they made their way to the first case, looking into the glass counter at the selections of watches before moving farther in.

A starchly dressed sales associate met them, smiling a brilliant, hopeful smile. "Hello, can I help you find something today?"

Ichigo shook his head. "Just looking."

"Let me know if I can find anything for you," the woman said, stepping back from the counter and eyeing another customer walking in the front door.

Rukia looked into the next case set with assorted gemstone rings. She frowned at the slightly fuzzy images beneath the glass. She closed one eye and used the lens eye to look closer at the rings. The red and blue stones appeared checkered, tiny crisscrosses playing on their faceted surfaces. She opened her eye and closed the lens-free eye. The checks disappeared. She moved to the next case as Ichigo hung back, following her a step behind.

She looked at the next set of cases. It was the same in each. Every stone in the rings, bracelets, and pendants was the same, each surface appearing checked.

She took the glasses off and looked to Ichigo, nodding. He took her elbow and steered her out of the store.

They stopped a block away at the town park and sat at a bench in the shade of a maple tree. Rukia's eyes went to the children at the playground behind them for a moment before settling on the lens in the sunglasses.

"You're right. All the stones looked fuzzy."

"That's the wash."

She looked to the modest ring on her finger. "Why didn't my wedding ring set off the alarm at the bank?"

His eyes went to the ring. "Wedding stones have a secondary wash that scanners recognize and ignore. It won't register an alarm."

She picked at the edge of the film in the lens.

"Keep it," he said. "Check your stones from York. They're not worthless."

She sighed, frowning at the film. "What would a jeweler give me for them?"

He shook his head, hooking an arm over the back of the bench. "I hope you don't do that, Rukia."

"How much?"

"I only know what York bough off us." He hesitated answering until she looked at him for a long moment. "Okay, if you took them to a jeweler they'd bring about $300,000."

She stared at him, mouth slightly agape. "That's not bad," she finally stammered.

He nodded. "Not bad, but the jeweler has to call the IRS, a national gem lab, and the local authorities. After all the taxes, penalties, and back assessments, you keep about sixty thousand. Not bad, but nothing compared to what I think you have."

She sat back against the wooden bench, unable to suppress a laugh. "What do you think I have, Ichigo?"

"About two million."

For a moment Rukia said nothing, watching his eyes before breaking into a giggle. "And all this time I thought you were serious!"

"I am serious," he said sternly as she waved a hand at him. "Your grandfather bought well, Rukia. A lot of the stones you have are mined out. He didn't hide them for nearly fifty years to be confiscated now."

She shook her head, giddy half at his suggestion and half at the reality of the amount. She looked to her watch. "I've got to call the attorney in fifteen minutes."

He nodded and stood as she did. "Don't mention the stones to them."

She nodded, smoothing her skirt and shirt.

"I know you've got a lot to think about, Rukia, and you've got questions."

She shook her head. "I don't know if I believe anything you've said yet."

He sighed, putting his hands on his hips. "Have dinner with me tonight, and I'll answer any questions you have."

She crossed her arms tightly, looking to the children on the swings for a moment, considering the invitation. She looked back to him. "Okay. I guess dinner is all right."


	9. Chapter 9

It was nearly four o'clock that afternoon as Aizen and Esparo walked through Daniel Scott's office door on the twenty-third floor of the downtown high rise. He looked up from his desk as they stepped in, appraising the navy dusters, the air of superiority about the taller man. He flicked off his computer screen, a cautious unease sweeping through him.

He forced a smile at them. "I didn't realize I had another appointment this afternoon," he said, rising and extending his hand. He looked from Aizen to Esparo, who stood near the door, closing it quietly. "Are you a referral?"

Aizen flipped the lapel of his jacket to expose the D5 badge, appreciating the broker's sinking expression at the movement. "I'm Agent Aizen, this is Agent Esparo. We're with Division Five of Assets Seizure."

Scott blanched and withdrew his hand, blinking quickly as Aizen stood across from the desk. "I haven't done anything wrong," he said, his voice catching dry. "I'm up to date on my books, my taxes, all --"

"We know about the invalid alexandrite and padparadscha you sold and emerald and beryl you just purchased." Aizen smiled. This was always his favorite part, the look of sheer terror on any of the money-men they cornered. The young ones were never slick enough to think on their feet like the older jewelers and attorneys, or even the common alley crooks.

Scott shook his head, thinking furiously as Esparo looked on. "I haven't done anything wrong."

Leeds nodded. "We'll start with the $53,000 you got hidden under the desk at home."

Scott's thoughts narrowed, turning to Ichigo. "That rat. He set me up."

"If you're talking about your supplier, he's not the one getting himself arrested right now." Aizen watched the man closely. "He's the rat we want."

Scott looked from Aizen to Esparo and back again. "How much trouble am I in?"

Aizen shrugged. "Oh, I'd say about fifteen to twenty. Minimum. Depending on your cooperation now. You want to walk out of here in handcuffs in front of your colleagues, or do you want to work with us and make it easier on yourself?"

Scott nodded, watching Aizen finger the cuffs at his belt. "I'll cooperate."

* * *

The Division Five debriefing room was already set with Shoren's laptop, a tape recorder, assorted pads of paper and pens, and several phones. Shoren plugged a third line into the main phone and clicked the other end into the recorder.

Esparo stood leaning against the beige wall behind Scott, who was seated at the narrow end of the rectangular table, Aizen kitty-corner from him, writing on a pad of paper. Scott's jacket was on the chair back behind him as he nervously drummed his fingers on the table, attention switching from Aizen to Shoren, who sat in a chair farther down the table.

Esparo impatiently watched Aizen, uncertain of the protocol, but with enough restraint to attempt beginning the questioning.

Finally Aizen looked up to Scott.

"I only met him those few times," Scott offered, trying to read what Aizen had written on the pad.

Aizen ripped the top paper off the pad and slid it and a pen to Scott. "Who'd you sell to? Names and addresses."

Scott nodded, pulling the paper closer. "There was only one man."

Aizen watched Scott write for a moment before glancing to Shoren who was holding one side of a headset to her ear. "You ready?" She nodded. He looked to Esparo. "You know what we want?"

"All set," Esparo said.

Aizen pulled the phone closer as Shoren started the tape recorder. He handed the earpiece to Scott. "Okay, Scott, we're going live. I want you to call him and place your order now." He looked to Esparo, who leaned over the man's shoulder, startling him.

"One bixbite," Esparo said slowly as Scott punched in the numbers to Ichigo's cell phone on the keypad, and one neon tourmaline. Okay?"

Scott nodded, taking a shaky breath and repeating the names of the gemstones lowly.

After five rings Ichigo picked up the other end of the line and his voice was heard over the speaker phone. "Yes?"

Scott cleared his throat. "It's Scott. I thought we could do some more business. You ever hear of bixbite?"

"The American red emerald," Ichigo said without hesitation. "Exclusively from Utah."

Scott looked at Aizen who was staring back at him. "And neon tourmaline."

"That's a very specific order," Ichigo said. "Sounds like you've been educating yourself, Scott."

Scott looked from Aizen to Esparo, discomfort growing. "I'm trying to. Can you get them?"

"Hang on a minute."

Aizen's attention turned to Shoren, who was watching her laptop monitor. She shook her head, feeling his weighty stare. "Nothing," she said in a low tone.

"Nothing at all?" Aizen leaned closer to her. "You're sure you've got the right trace?"

"He's running a reverse surge." She raised an eyebrow at him. "It's our own technology, Aizen. Military."

"Get around it," he grunted, looking back to Scott. "Meet him for the stones today."

Scott began to speak, but Ichigo's voice came over the speaker again.

"Yeah, I've got both on me. You're talking about big money now, Scott."

Scott nodded as Esparo leaned on the back of his chair. "How much?"

There was a muffled sound on Ichigo's end of the line. "One neon and one bixbite, two carats each, would be almost sixty total."

Aizen nodded.

"The buyer you told me about," Scott said, glancing at the name he'd written on the paper, "he'd like to get them today."

"Can't today," came Ichigo's voice over the speaker phone. "Tomorrow? Corner of Fifth and Main, four o'clock."

"Uh, sure. Cash?" Scott asked.

"Yes," Ichigo said.

Scott nodded. "I'll be there."

Aizen took the phone's earpiece from Scott as the line clicked off, looking to Shoren. "What have you got?"

"Just the same signal bounces," she said, typing at her keypad. "He's isolated."

Aizen studied her for a few long moments as she ignored him, eyes on her monitor. He looked to Esparo who was still hovering over a very pale Scott. "Ryan, pick up two tag kits. We'll do it at Scott's purchase tomorrow." His attention went to Scott. "You pull this off right tomorrow and you just may buy yourself a good deal of leniency."

Scott swallowed noticeably, nodding.

The door suddenly opened and Ichimaru looked in at them, focusing on Aizen.

"Out here a minute."

Aizen slid his paperwork to Shoren and met his superior in the hall, closing the door behind him. "I thought you were gone already."

Ichimaru nodded to the door. "Frying fish?"

"Just the little one. He may lead us to the bigger fish."

"Well, no frying the big one until I get back," Ichimaru reminded, giving Aizen a knowing look. "You tag and you follow. That's it. You don't bring him in, you don't beat the snot out of him in an alley. You _follow_."

Aizen nodded slowly. "We can make him talk and have all his records."

"In good time. You follow until you're sure it's him, and then you don't bring him in until I say so." There was no smile on Ichimaru's line of a mouth. "You got that, Agent?"

Aizen nodded. "Yes. Sir."

* * *

The evening air was muggy and unmoving as Ichigo turned the Chevy 350 pick-up truck into the modest restaurant at the edge of town later. Better than the heat of New York City, he decided, but still damp enough to make his tan cotton shirt cling to him when he moved. He tossed the cigarette butt out the open window and parked away from most of the cars in the lot, looking over the moderately busy establishment.

He was shaking out another cigarette from the pack when a taxi pulled into the lot, circling slowly until stopping between the rows of parked cars. The back door opened and he saw Rukia's small form step out, her usual skirt dropping just below her knees, this time a jute green topped by a sleeveless tan blouse, as she looked around the lot.

He tossed the box of cigarettes to the bench seat and got out of the truck as Rukia looked his way. She shut the taxi door and spoke to the driver before meeting him midway from the truck.

She shook her head, dark hair bouncing, eyes wary on him. "I don't want to have dinner. I changed my mind."

He sighed. "We do need to talk about your inheritance, Rukia. You have fifteen days to declare valuables from an estate under Wisconsin law."

She glanced at the taxi waiting and then back to Ichigo. "I don't see what there is to discuss," she said with a timid shrug. "I can't sell the stones."

"You shouldn't sell them to a jeweler; you can sell them to me."

She looked to his truck, and laughed. "I suppose your _other_ car is a BMW."

He grinned. "One of them is. I thought everyone drove trucks out here. I'm trying to fit in."

She shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest. "You don't have $2 million."

"You don't think so?"

She studied him for a moment, looking to each of his eyes. "I suppose it's only you," she said finally. "There's no one else."

He shrugged slowly, eyes flicking from her to the taxi where the driver was getting impatient, and back again. "There are about half a dozen dealers in North America who'd trade you for clean stones, but I'm the only one who knows about York's stock. You're looking at a lot of money, Rukia."

She debated this, fingers pressing into her bare arms as she watched his face. "Okay."

"Good." Ichigo paid the taxi driver and they went inside the restaurant.

The eatery's interior was decorated a few notches above Rosa's Bar and Grill, with folksy pop music floating among the patrons, mostly families and older couples at the booths and tables, with a few aged men at the short bar in one corner. The hostess showed Ichigo and Rukia to a booth set away from the bulk of the family section, smiling and giving each a menu.

"Anything from the bar?" she asked.

"Two vodka martinis," Ichigo said.

She nodded and left the table, signaling their waitress.

Ichigo leaned closer over the table as Rukia looked around the busy dining room. "I can't advise you well unless I see the stones York left you."

"I didn't bring them with me."

He chuckled. "I hope not." He pulled a piece of folded paper from his pants back pocket. "I've got a list of what he purchased from us."

She nodded, eyes on the paper he unfolded. "Let's just go with that for now."

His eyes traveled down the paper. "One four carat blue sapphire was set in a gold ring."

"It was my Grandmother's wedding ring."

"You could keep that as an heirloom, but you'll have to report it. They won't give you much hassle over something like that." He looked further down the paper. "Uh, you've got quite a bit. One exceptional grade diamond. The rest are mixed, selective stones. Very unique taste."

Her fingers fidgeted with the napkin before her on the table, smoothing the small pleats in the edge. She raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure it's not just cut glass you buy back with counterfeit money?"

His face took on a serious expression. "Or we could trade them to Cuba. Help finance their ICBM program."

Alarm fell over Rukia's face. Ichigo laughed at her surprise. Their waitress arrived and set two drinks on the table, promising to return shortly for their orders.

"I'm kidding, Rukia," Ichigo said as she frowned at his jest. "Cut glass? Not with the kind of money I'm paying. You've got this counterfeiting, money-laundering stuff stuck in your head, Mrs. Parker, and it's the wrong idea."

She stared back at him, slightly miffed. "I just sell it all to you?"

"If you want to. Keep the ring and other jewelry if you like." He took a drink of the martini, watching her over the rim of the glass as her violet eyes lost some of their smolder.

"How do I know you've got the money?"

He set the glass down. "I don't have it on me. It'll take about three weeks and twenty banks. I don't keep that much in one bank. They have these sticky laws about fund transactions and waiting periods. Stacks of Federal forms."

Rukia reached for her drink. "I can't stay three weeks."

He nodded as she sipped the clear fluid, expression recoiling some at the sharp taste. "I have a French client who'd take your stones in a heartbeat. You'd have your money in two, three days. The fancier ones you could sell to Hamburg."

Rukia had ceased listening somewhere, gulping air with her sip and coughing. "France?" She caught her breath, taking a inhaling deeply, eyes widening on him.

He grinned, passing her another napkin as she put a hand to her mouth and cleared her throat. "That's where they keep the French."

"This gets worse every day." She took a long drink of the martini as her nerves jolted.

"You have the chance to become a very rich woman, Rukia." Ichigo sat back and hooked an arm over the booth edge, enjoying the combination of curiosity and agitation playing in her eyes. "Just take a few days. When do you report assets to York's attorney?"

"Monday. Next week's Monday," she clarified, returning his amused attention. "Eleven, twelve days."

"Plenty of time," he said, nodding. "We'd be back by then."

Her eyes narrowed on him. "_We_?"

"You wouldn't trust me with your stones without you." he said, grin widening. "Would you?"

The waitress returned, order pad in hand, oblivious to the reason the petite woman in the booth was staring with stunned suspicion at the man across the table. "Ready to order?"


	10. Chapter 10

The construction site in the small subdivision outside the rural town was the newest addition, bringing a step-up in moderately pricey homes, the second stage of a three stage development the town housing board had implemented in hopes of bringing attracting more affluent sect.

Certainly not homes the construction workers themselves could ever hope to own, not with the seasonal work Wisconsin's weather allowed the industry.

Michael headed to his truck at noon for lunch, not anticipating the tepid leftovers of hamburger casserole he'd packed that day from Rukia's selfless preparations for her short leave of their home.

His thoughts hung around her, half of the time centering around any monetary gain to be had from York's death, half missing her small form beside him in bed on the balmy nights.

He ran a hand through his brown hair now minus the hardhat, looking up in surprise at the truck's cab.

Ambra smiled back from where she sat in the passenger side, raising her hand to wave a few fingers at him, gold tipped nails flashing in the hot sunlight.

He leaned his forearms arms on the open driver's side window, eyes falling over her fringe-trimmed jean cutoffs and tangerine tank top, a bottle of champagne in her hand.

"Thought you might like some company," she said with a playful smile, holding the bottle higher. "I brought a little bubbly."

He reached through the window, hand closing on the lunchbox she had her arm draped over. "Thanks, no."

"Oh, come on, Mikey," she said, fingers tapping on the lunchbox, arm anchored on the top when he attempted to inch the carrier away. "How long is your lunch break?"

"It doesn't matter." He retrieved his hand and opened the truck door. "Come on out."

She looked over the unfinished house, to the other workers milling about to trucks and cars for the break. "Where do you want to go?"

He watched her eyes as she said it, not missing the subtle flash that imparted more than her words. He glanced around the bare ground near the house and to the street where other houses were in stages of being built, finding her car parked a few lots away. "Take yourself home, Ambra."

"There's nothing scandalous about lunch, Mickey," she said, knees shifting so that he could see her long legs better. "You have to eat. Why not with me?"

His eyes skimmed her legs only briefly before he put a hand on the lunchbox and jerked it clear of her arm. He turned and left, striding back to the site without a look backward.

She watched him go, leaning her back into the seat, sighing as she rested the sweating champagne bottle on her thigh. Soon.

* * *

In the briefing room Scott was being prepped for his gemstone drop with Ichigo. He stood uneasily as Aizen circled him, nerves sharpening at every movement the man made. At the table Shoren sat with her laptop, alternately typing and reading from the screen. He looked to Esparo, who was dressed in well-worn camouflage fatigues and a black vest over a black t-shirt, arms laced with temporary tattoos with tackily designed skulls, roses, and inaccurate kanji.

Aizen stuck a tiny earpiece in Scott's ear canal and then handed him a small tan latex patch. "Put that on your arm, just above your elbow."

"A nicotine patch?" Scott peeled it off the clear plastic backing and stuck it to his arm below his dress shirt sleeve.

"That's what you tell him is, if he asks," Aizen said. "It's a microphone and transmitter so we can hear him, too." He looked to Shoren as she tapped at the keyboard. "Got him?"

She nodded, holding her own earphones closer to her head. "I've got you."

Aizen looked to the wall clock and back at Scott. "You've got forty-five minutes until the scheduled drop. Agent Grimmjow is taking you two streets up from the hot dog stand on Fifth and Main. You make your way back, meet him for the drop, and head back to Fourth Street where Grimmjow will collect you. We're watching your every move on this, Scott," he said lowly, tone void of any emotion. "You try to warn him and I'll personally see that you get every bit of a twenty year sentence."

Scott nodded quickly.

He looked to Shoren. "You observe from the cafe on Fifth until I clear you to leave. You," he said to Esparo, "are with me."

Shoren and Esparo both nodded as Aizen turned Scott to the door.

"Let's go."

* * *

Half an hour later Aizen and Esparo were in place at the black SUV parked two blocks away from the hot dog stand doing only moderate business in the afternoon's heat. Through a steady line of traffic they watched the stand tender work.

Esparo leaned back in the SUV's front seat as Aizen typed at the notebook beside him, unaware of what the senior agent was reading. "This temporary ink itches," he said, resisting the urge to wipe at the black tattoos crossing his forearms. He leaned an arm on the open window, accustomed to the smells radiating from the street.

Aizen only nodded, intent on the screen before him. He reread the file on Isshin Kurosaki -- his own private file he hadn't entirely shared with the Division. "See him yet?"

Esparo raised the binoculars to his eyes, searching the street ahead for sings of Grimmjow's vehicle or Scott. "No one yet."

Aizen nodded, eyes on the notebook screen. He reviewed the latest entries, made years before. The most recent of any interest was details on the automobile accident that had claimed Isshin's life. He made mistakes there, Aizen had. Although not planned by him, the accident had come at a nearly convenient time. He'd been part of the unit on its way to meet with Isshin at that very moment -- not a planned meeting, but a meeting nonetheless. When his car had passed the accident, an overturned truck impacted by a larger truck, he'd seen the two dead drivers and the footprints in the snow that led away from the scene.

If he and Paulson had been half an hour earlier that day they could have intercepted the Kurosakis before the accident and the case would have been handled then. Instead, with arrest warrant in hand and a sheriff's deputy in the car behind them, he and Paulson had found the bloody wreck and bodies, but no Ichigo Kurosaki.

He sighed and looked to the previous entry, which detailed the work order for the Kurosaki house fire that had taken the life of Masaki.

A work order Aizen himself had forged.

The tragedy still hadn't produced the results he wanted, namely Isshin's grief-stricken surrender of his client files.

Of course, the implications for such a forgery would not only evaporate any chance on a promotion to captain, he knew, but result in charges against him. If it were to be discovered.

"_He's moving_," Grimmjow's voice came over the vehicle radio.

Aizen picked up the radio's handset as Daniel Scott appeared two blocks away, a taller form in the sidewalk pedestrian traffic as he headed for the hot dog stand. "We've got him. You can head on over to the pick-up, Grimmjow."

Esparo lowered the binoculars when he could see Scott well enough on the sidewalk. He looked to where Shoren sat in the cafe, visible in her window seat booth. She didn't appear to be watching.

They watched Scott approach the hot dog vendor, his posture rigid, jacket over his arm. A moment later Ichigo made his way to the stand, a baseball cap over her hair, medium blue button-up shirt and casual pants like a hundred other men on the street.

"_Hey_," came Scott's voice over the radio. "_You made it."_

Aizen and Esparo exchanged a look before both turned their attention to the man standing with Scott a few feet away from the vendor at the streets corner.

"_I've never heard of a red emerald,"_ Scott said.

"_Very rare_," Ichigo's voice came over the radio, clouded slightly by the street noise. "_Keep walking_."

Aizen and Esparo watched their targets turn down the sidewalk, in their direction.

"_I didn't think gemstones were worth this much,"_ Scott said, shifting nervously, hands in his pockets.

"_Few from a jeweler are_," Ichigo said, a doubled plastic Styrofoam coffee cup in one hand. "_Your most portable and private of investments. Recognized worldwide. Used to be undeclared, undetectable. You can carry the diamond equivalent in one handful what would weigh hundreds of pounds in gold."_

"_Very portable. Do you have them?"_

Aizen and Esparo saw their targets' pace slow.

Ichigo handed the cups over to Scott. "_Put the money in the top cup. The stones are in the bottom one_."

Scott took the doubled cup and reached into his pants pocket for the roll of bills wrapped in a wadded napkin. "_You going to count it here?"_

_"No_."

Scott separated the cups and kept the bottom one, looking into it to see the small lumps at the bottom also wrapped in a napkin. "_How do I know it's them_?"

Ichigo looked at him, nearly stopping. "_If you want to have them appraised, Scott, you've got the wrong dealer_," he said, his voice holding an edge over Aizen's radio. "_You got your money's worth the other times."_

Scott nodded, handing back the top cup to Ichigo, who moved the napkin inside enough to see the roll of bills. "_Are we set?"_

Scott nodded.

_"Keep in touch, Scott."_

Aizen and Esparo watched as Ichigo's pace quickened until he reached an alley, where he turned down it and disappeared among the fire escapes and garbage bins. Aizen started the SUV and pulled onto the street, past a retreating Scott on his way to meet Grimmjow a few streets away.

He picked up the radio's handset as he turned the SUV abruptly into an alley farther down from the hotdog stand. "Scott's heading for collection, Grimmjow. Shoren, you remain put until Ryan and I finish."

"_Will do_," she confirmed.

He dodged a couple teens lounging near the next alley opening and slowed the vehicle to park behind a dumpy restaurant's rear entrance. Esparo retrieved two small black packs from the back seat.

"He'll either head out here or on the other side," Aizen said, nodding to the alley ahead of them. "The alley he took circles back." He took the black case containing the tag kit Esparo handed him. "You take this side."

Esparo looked eagerly down the alley cluttered with garbage cans, wooden pallets, and cardboard boxes. "We could take him right, Aizen."

The older agent's hand closed around the tag kit. "Ichimaru said tag only. I don't like it, either." He touched the earpiece stuck in his left ear. "B channel."

Esparo headed through the crowded back alley where smells of grime and garbage mingled with stale urine, intensified in the unmoving heat of the day, his handgun stuck in the back of his camouflage pants. He pulled a black ski mask over his head, adjusted the eye holes, and felt his senses stiffen as Ichigo turned the corner ahead of him twenty feet away.

Esparo pulled the gun from behind him, angling it sideways at the other man. "Your wallet! Now!"

Ichigo halted, posture tensing. He spread his arms out to his sides. "Easy, pal."

"Your wallet!"

Ichigo moved one hand slowly to his back pocket, fishing the wallet out. "How much you want, pal?"

"All of it! Throw it over here!" Esparo waved the gun at him.

Ichigo debated for a moment, and then tossed the wallet a few feet in front of him.

Esparo cursed, taking a few steps forward. "Pick it up!"

Ichigo watched the masked man, estimating his reflexes and age. He reached for the wallet, seeing Esparo's eyes on it, and rushed him.

Esparo's back hit the block wall to one side of the alley as Ichigo crashed into him, the lighter-haired man's hand around the wrist of the hand holding the gun, Ichigo's other arm braced against his throat,

"Not today, pal!" Ichigo bit out, smashing the hand with the gun against the wall.

Esparo pushed back, intent on retaining the gun he was forbidden to use on his attacker.

Neither man saw Aizen round the corner of the building, closing the distance between them, throwing a look down the narrow alley before holding the tines of a cartridge-free taser to Ichigo's side. "Afraid so, pal."

A jolt passed through his shirt, his flesh, making his muscles recoil, sending a secondary charge into Esparo against the wall. He dropped to Aizen's feet, where the agent stuck a second charge against the side of his neck.

Esparo howled in gut-wrenching shock and intense pain but remained on his feet, his gun trickling from his hand. His knees nearly buckled as he leaned to the wall for support, eyes narrowing on Aizen. "You son of a bitch!"

Aizen dropped to one knee beside Ichigo, turning his limp neck as Ichigo blinked in confusion, eyes unfocused on the wall. Aizen ripped off the baseball cap and turned Ichigo's head to face down. "You don't carry a weapon if you can't use it on your target, Esparo. Everyone in field knows that."

Esparo glared at him, trying to catch his breath, shucking off the ski mask as he recovered from the stun.

"Check the wallet," Aizen said as he opened the tag kit case and pulled out a small hypodermic needle and alcohol packet, watching residual twitches course through Ichigo, whose eyes were half closed against the alley pavement. Aizen tore open the alcohol package and swabbed behind Ichigo's right ear as he quieted, unmoving.

Esparo found the wallet and opened it, thumbing through it. "How much of this is he going to remember?"

"Vaguely nothing, if we do it right."

"Going by the name Robert Tyler," he said, studying the driver's license. He counted the money in the larger compartment. "Sixty-two thousand, cash."

Aizen took the tip off the hypodermic already loaded with the rice-sized tracking chip and inserted it behind Ichigo's ear below the skull, bringing no reaction from him. "I'd bet my balls this is Ichigo Kurosaki."

"Is that going to be enough for Ichimaru?" Esparo asked, removing the money from the wallet and tossed it into a heap of rubbish against one wall, watching Aizen as he held a small sweep device, eyes on the gray screen.

Aizen shrugged. "If it's not, we'll bet yours, too."

Esparo chuckled nervously. "How accurate it that unit?"

Aizen nodded as the small blue light on the screen grid turned red. "Very. Runs off GPS." He nodded at the red light. "He's warm." He raised Ichigo's head and slammed it against the wall.

"What're you doing?" Esparo watched his new partner warily, glancing around the alley for his gun.

Aizen set Ichigo's head down, seeing the faint red seep at his temple. He stood and looked from the tracking monitor to Esparo. "We want him to think he got mugged, not tasered and chipped. That should distract him from any irritation at the injection site."

They headed out of the alley, leaving the unconscious form behind them, and made their way back to the SUV down the next street. They got in and Aizen pulled back into the sparse traffic and parked farther down across from Fourth Street.

Aizen switched off the vehicle's radio as they watched the alley for ten minutes, neither speaking, feeling Esparo's occasional glances his way. "You all right, Ryan?"

"Yeah. Just surprised me."

A few minutes later they saw Ichigo walk slowly out of the alley, holding one hand to his bleeding temple, pushing his hair back to the side. With the other hand he stuffed his empty wallet into his back pants pocket and turned down the opposite side of the street.

Aizen sighed. "This isn't the type of target you chip and walk away from. He needs personal attention."

Esparo watched Ichigo join the other pedestrians on the sidewalk.

"But, we'll track for a while," Aizen said, glancing down at the tracking monitor's screen where a red dot was moving slowly along the grid. He looked back up at the sidewalk traffic.

"We'll pick up Shoren and make our report with Scott."

Esparo nodded, confidence in his partner adjusting a notch.


	11. Chapter 11

Early that evening Michael stepped out of the shower of the Parker house and into the steamy bathroom which was doubly thick with moisture due to the day's sweltering heat. He dried off with a towel and pulled on a pair of navy sweatpants. From downstairs he could hear the _beep-beep _of the microwave telling him the spaghetti was defrosted.

He ran a towel through his hair, a light from the neighboring house next door catching his eye out the window in the darkening room. He went there, moving the knotty lace curtains to see Ambra's house better.

The light in an upstairs room illuminated a square on the brown sided house, through which he could see her slender form as she pulled off her blouse and tossed it on the bed. She unfastened her bra and let it drop, putting both hand to her loose hair and pulling them back slowly, sighing in the heat of the dusk.

He stopped drying his hair, watching with growing fascination as she turned her back to him, looking around in her bedroom. She paused, and then turned slowly to look at the window through which he glimpsed. He stood straighter, realizing he was hovering over the sill, having opened the curtains wider.

He couldn't see her smile, but it was there as she stood to one side of her window, leaning slightly against her own long curtains as the light of the lamp behind silhouetted her shapely figure. One hand went to her stomach, sliding down the sleek skin, her fingers easing down to the clasp on her jean cutoffs. Michael made himself turn away from the window.

"Damn Larry," he muttered, pulse already quickening, making a stalwart effort to not take that second glance. He forced himself to go down the stairs, the aroma of Rukia's spicy spaghetti steaming up the microwave.

He looked at the device and pushed the buttons to heat it from thawed to hot, and then went into the living room. It took a moment to find the remote control, but he did, and switched on the TV to the boxing match he had $40.00 riding on.

The phone rang, and he reached for it, muting the TV as the announcers rehashed the last fight between the welter weights.

"Hello," he said, eyes on the TV before recognizing the voice of the caller, bringing a smile to his face. "Hey, Rukia, honey. How's it going there?"

"_Okay_," she said, voice sounding strangely timid long-distance. "_How was work?"_

He nodded. "Good."

"_Are you alone?"_ Her words were thin, as if she'd said them as she inhaled.

"Of course I'm alone." He closed his eyes momentarily. "Just getting ready for a pile of spaghetti while I watch Pickertt beat the hell out of Manford. How much longer are you going to be there?"

"_Maybe a week. Grandpa York had some assets I didn't expect, and, well, the attorney is helping me figure out their worth._" She sighed. "_I've got a few things to take care of, but I'll be home soon_."

He nodded, looking to the TV screen. "Hurry back, Rukia."

"_I will. I love you, Michael_," she said softly. "_I just wanted to say goodnight_."

"Goodnight, honey."

* * *

Across the state line Rukia hung up and sat back in her chair at York's farmhouse, fingers tapping on the table as darkness fell over the kitchen. She hesitated, looking at the phone's ear piece in her hand, undecided, until the high-pitched noise came over it announcing she'd timed out to make another call. She pressed the release button and then dialed another number.

* * *

Ichigo wasn't in the mood to answer the phone when it rang in his modest motel room thirty minutes from where he'd gotten mugged that afternoon. The two points of singed holes below his right ribs itched a little, but the scrape at his head was downright painful. He'd spent twenty minutes after getting robbed coming to his senses enough to know that he'd been attacked by at least two people, but had managed not to get shot.

It should have been a great consolation, but it left him in a foul mood and more eager to get out of New York that afternoon. He adjusted the ice pack at his temple, grimacing as he sat in the arm chair before the TV set where a boxing match was underway, and reached for his cell phone on the sixth ring.

"Yeah?"

"_I'd like to sell_," Rukia's voice told him over the phone line.

He sat of straighter at the sound of her voice, a cheer going up from the crowd on the TV. "Mrs. Parker? Rukia?"

"_I want to sell_," she said. "_As soon as possible. Are you watching the fight?"_

"Yeah, my man's losing." He frowned, pressing the ice pack harder where his hair was standing up belligerently over his ear. "Don't tell me you're a boxing fan."

Her giggle came over the line. "_Not much. So, what happens now?_"

He grabbed his cigarettes from the small lamp table to the chair's side, pulled one out, cradling the phone below his ear, trying to avoid unseating the ice pack as he used the other hand to retrieve a light from his jeans pocket. "Are you free tomorrow?"

Her breath caught, making him grin as he flicked the lighter and held the flame to the cigarette at his lips.

"_So soon?"_ she asked.

He took a drag on the cigarette, wiping the falling ashes that trickled to his bare chest. "I thought you were in a hurry."

"_I am, I am_," she said, taking a deep breath. "_Okay_."

"Do you have a passport with you?"

"_Uh, no_."

"We'll make do. We'll leave tomorrow. Bring a photo and be at ..." He thought for a moment of the small shopping mall strip he'd seen on the outskirts of town while there. "Be at that barbeque place in the strip mall in town tomorrow at ten a.m. so you can pack."

"_Pack_?" she said weakly. "_What do I have to pack there?_"

Ichigo watched Manford down Pickertt with a punch to the jaw line on the TV screen. "You gotta pack your stones, Rukia."

* * *

Across the city Aizen sat alone at the collection of desks pushed to his in the dimly lit room, the other D5 agents having left hours ago, eyes on the screen of the computer monitor he'd plugged into the scanner showing the whereabouts of Kurosaki's tracking chip. Even his partners had abandoned his vigil, Shoren home with a promise to keep tabs from her laptop, Esparo departing at the first opportune moment since his tepid electrification.

Aizen watched the screen, eyes narrowing on the steadily blinking red light that placed Ichigo Kurosaki thirty miles away, within snatching distance if it weren't for Ichimaru's strict orders to remain hands off.

He sat back in the chair, pulling his files closer. Actually, Ichimaru hadn't exactly said hands off; He'd made it clear not to apprehend Kurosaki, not to bully him into a back alley interrogation.

It left so many options, Aizen had concluded. He flipped through the file, seeing the same photos he'd seen dozens of times, the startling nature of a few of them having faded over the years. He found the sheet of paper detailing what little was known of Ichigo Kurosaki. Not much on the teenage boy who'd walked away from the automobile accident that killed Isshin. No blood type -- nothing they could conclusively prove, anyway -- no definite fingerprints, not even a photo of his last age. Only a school photo that showed a sophomore with absurdly orange hair and a determined scowl on his face.

The phone rang on Aizen's desk, jolting his trip down memory lane. He picked up the receiver.

"_He's moving, Sousuke_," Shoren said over the line.

"Sousuke is it now, Thomason?" He chuckled.

"_No. Sorry, I'm at home so everything is casual_."

"Sousuke is fine, Shoren." He looked to the monitor.

"_He's moving."_

He frowned. "I'm looking at his tag right now, Shoren. He's stationary."

"_Not for long. I've got his phone traces, and he's talking to someone in Wisconsin. That's it, a very vague trace."_

"How close can you narrow it down?"

"_Can't; not with this trace. He's had some training, Aizen,_" she said with a sigh.

"This tag is useless," he muttered, glancing at Ichimaru's dark office.

"_Prove it and maybe they'll let us get more personal_." There was a pause for a moment, and then she continued. "_I really don't want Field, Aizen. Can't you get someone else?"_

He shook his head, closing the file and looking to the monitor's single red light over the grid lines that were the west suburbs of the city. "Not soon. We'll see once Ichimaru gets back from his luxury holiday."

"_Okay_," she said with a sigh. "_See you in the morning_."

Aizen hung up the phone, eyes still on the monitor. "Who the hell do you know in Wisconsin, Kurosaki?"

* * *

Rukia's taxi pulled into the small shopping mall at the edge of town the next morning just as most of the stores were opening, mostly small boutiques, outlet pick-up fronts, and a few restaurants. They passed these and parked near another taxi already there. She looked to the back door as Ichigo stepped out and crossed the few spaces to her taxi.

"Morning," he said, opening the rear door when she hesitated moving. "Still coming, aren't you?"

She nodded, getting out and smoothing her raspberry skirt in the balmy breeze that swept the parking lot. Her fingers closed nervously around her denim pouch handbag. "Are you sure about this, Ichigo?"

He nodded, reaching for her single suitcase in the back seat before paying her driver. She turned as the taxi pulled away, then looked to Ichigo. "How do we get through the airport with illegal stones?" she said in a lower tone, leaning to him as her eyes went to his waiting taxi driver.

"We'll get through."

They met his taxi and he opened the rear door, waited for her to settle inside and sat next to her, keeping her suitcase on his knees. He handed the driver two folded bills.

"Get lost for ten minutes," he said.

The driver frowned at him, turning in the seat.

"Keep the meter running, but get lost," Ichigo said, tapping his shoulder with the money.

The man looked at the bills, then snagged them and turned off the ignition and left the car.

Rukia watched the man saunter to the sidewalk as '_Open'_ lights in the blinked on in the mall shops, counting the money as he went. Ichigo reached over her for the knapsack on the floor near her feet. He unzipped it and handed her a shell pink cosmetic case.

"Open it."

Thoughts of Michael rushed her mind for a moment -- how she would explain agreeing to go to France with another man, how she'd tell him of the abundance of money from her inheritance, and of the sharp, painful memories that still echoed through her psyche on rare moments when he was late coming home from work.

"What's in it?" she asked, easing open the snap lid, Inside were two compartments of assorted toiletries, all brand name hair and beauty products. Duplicates of each. "What's all this?"

"The gemstones won't show up on the airport security scanners as solids when immersed in petroleum jelly," he said, pulling several of the containers out. "Sink the stones deep in these and we'll cover them with the genuine product, in case security opens them."

Rukia's fingers paused on the open jar marked Pond's face cream he handed her. "Are you sure this will work?"

He nodded, unscrewing the cap from mud mask bentonite clay. "Works every time, Rukia."

She sunk the first few stones in the Pond's jar, making sure they were out of sight in the half filled container of petroleum jelly. Twenty stones later, Ichigo took it from her and used another jar of Pond's to fill with a layer of white scented cream

"How'd you figure this out?" she asked, fingers pushing a sapphire deep into the facial clay jay of petroleum. "A trick from your mother?"

He chuckled, wiping the jar's lid threading of excess cold cream with a tissue. "No. Just an old trick."

"Wouldn't it be easier to simply take the chemical wash off the stones? Something like fingernail polish remover," she offered, handing him the clay jar hiding thirty-two stones.

"It's been tried; doesn't work." He filled the jar top with oatmeal scented clay to completely cover the petroleum below. "They're working on a cleaner."

Her eyes shot to his. "Who is?"

Ichigo stopped wiping the jar, realizing his slight slip. He looked back at the violet eyes watching him intently. He shrugged. "Different people," he said, handing her another jar of hand cream labeled almond body butter. "All those basement methamphetamine labs that the BATF raids, the ones that blow up or catch fire," he nodded, "some of those are people working on a cleaner for the wash. Not every one of them," he said quickly as her stare turned suspicious. "But quite a few the last couple of years."

She finished the last jar, hands moving slower as she considered his explanation. He took the jar when she was done and gave her a handful of tissues and alcohol towelette packets. She carefully removed the slick cloudy jelly from her fingers, wiping bemusedly as she rethought his theory, watching him fill the last jar with an off-white cream that smelled of almonds.

He stuffed the empty containers and slick tissues in the knapsack, watching Rukia's knee edge near his as she packed, noting the hem of her skirt offered a brief glimpse of her leg before she automatically pulled at it.

She placed the gemstone laden jars in the cosmetic case, oblivious to his fleeting attention, trying to smile. "Well, I certainly look like a high maintenance diva now."

He grinned as she sighed and snapped the case closed, surprised by her sudden humor. The taxi driver returned and seated himself in the front, glancing at them in the rear view mirror.

"Are you sure we can sell these, Ichigo?" she asked in a voice he could barely hear.

He nodded, watching the doubt flit through her eyes. "Absolutely."

"Where to?" the driver asked.

Ichigo settled his arm across the back of the seat behind Rukia. "Central Wisconsin Airport."


	12. Chapter 12

Rukia held her breath as they went through security checks and claims at the airport. Her hands gripped the cosmetic case tightly as the overweight female inspector rifled through her lone suitcase and purse. She held up Rukia's fake driver's license and passport Ichigo had altered on the taxi drive over.

The inspector looked pointedly from Rukia to the identification, snapping her chewing gun noisily before nodding. She reached her thick hand to Rukia.

"The case, Miss Tanaka."

Rukia handed the cosmetic case to her, relieved Ichigo was at her side, even if she was quite certain he wouldn't be able to do anything about it if she didn't clear the inspection.

The inspector gave the containers a cursory look, opened a few and took a whiff, and then repacked the case.

"Next."

Rukia breathed a sigh of relief. Ichigo chuckled as they walked to the terminal.

"I told you not to worry," he said in a low tone, as their suitcases made the trek separately to the plane. "You're fine."

"Why do I have to use a different driver's license?" She waited until they had passed the last security clerk, who waved and nodded to each passenger. "You're not using your real name at all." A thought suddenly occurred to her. "I don't even know your last name. Ichigo."

"It's one of those generic ones. Like Smith, or Jones. Let's say it's Smith."

She gave him an annoyed look as he grinned.

On the plane Rukia's nerves stopped rattling a bit, content that she'd made it to the window seat without any real difficulty, was belted in, the case at her side near the side of the plane, Ichigo in the seat to her other side. Her thoughts drifted to Michael and the explanations that were yet to come about the money from the gemstones.

If she indeed benefited from her sneaking around.

She shook her head and closed her eyes as the preliminary announcements were made before take-off, her mind shunning all but her busy conscience that was scratching at her morals.

"What do you feel like for dinner?"

She looked up at Ichigo as the plane taxied down the runway, momentum pushing her steadily into the seat. "I've never flown," she murmured, fingers pressing into the seat armrests.

He nodded slightly. "You're doing fine."

Her eyes squeezed shut as the plane lifted, lips pursing as she held her breath. When the announcement came over the speakers that the passengers could remove their seatbelts, she sat frozen, still immobile until Ichigo unfastened her restraint. She looked down.

"Is it over?"

"We're in the air," he told her.

She sighed deeply and moved the seatbelt out of her way, repositioning the case and shifting more comfortably in the seat.

He watched her movements, suppressing a laugh. "Dinner?"

Rukia's scruples spiked. "Is this business or pleasure?"

"A little of both. We'll make it what you want."

She shook her head, looking out the window at the green, white, and strips of gray in the landscape below fade smaller.

"Come on, Rukia. You can't go to Paris without living a little," he said.

She shook her head. "I don't know how I'll ever tell Michael about this."

He sat back in the seat, leaning toward her. "The money will help." He'd never been in this particular spot before, never escorted this type of client on a direct exchange of stones. "You've got to be careful with it, Rukia. Michael will have to keep some sort of job. For appearances. Watch when they change to new bank notes, and replace it a little at a time. There's a man in Chicago who can help you there."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "How much is this trip costing me?"

"This comes out of my commission."

"Your fifteen percent."

"Stop worrying, Rukia. You'll be a rich woman in three days." He chuckled, watching her suspicions ease a notch. "So, what's the L for in R.L. Parker?"

She smiled timidly. "Louise."

"Rukia Louise York." He nodded, stretching his legs in the confined space. "Pretty."

"No, he was Mom's father. Dad's name was Kuchiki."

He frowned at her. "Rukia Louise Kuchiki?"

"I know, kind of a tongue-twister. Makes a choppy monogram, too."

He nodded slowly, mind trying to grasp a thought verging on the edge of his memory. "When were you born?"

She looked at him, shifting a few inches in the seat.

He noticed the movement. "I mean, every month has a birthstone."

The slight smile came back to her lips, nearly reaching her eyes. "May. Emerald, right?"

"Yeah, right." He looked to the backs of the other passengers' heads in front of him, thoughts milling. "You grew up in Wisconsin?"

This time her tone was sharper. "Why?"

He ran a hand through his hair, resisting a grimace when his fingers touched the scrape on his scalp. "Just asking." He tried to ignore the spot behind his ear that itched, attributing it to his earlier mugging in the alley. "Just a simple Midwest girl?"

She turned in the seat to see him better, eyes studying him more intently. "What about you, Ichigo Smith?"

"That's about it," he said with short shrug. "Uh, your folks, do --"

"They passed away. Car accident outside Akron." She looked back out the window.

"Sorry."

She didn't turn back to him, her posture suddenly slackening into the seat back, a soft sigh escaping her. Ichigo didn't press the conversation, instead content to watch her eyes as they took in the view below.

* * *

At the same moment, Aizen was hovering over the computer screen at D5 headquarters where a small red dot was blinking rapidly, the coordinates in the location box below registering longitude, latitude, and altitude. His attention snapped to where Shoren was hurrying through the maze of desks in the crowded room of Field offices and agents.

"He's moving!" she told him needlessly.

"I can see that!" He grabbed a laptop from beneath his desk and felt along his shoulder holster before opening the desk drawer to find another clip for the nine-millimeter. "We're going. Find his flight and have him held when he lands." He shuffled through the drawer and found a wallet containing passport and several other identifications. "Where the hell is Esparo?"

"The flight is for Paris," she said as several of the other agents looked their way. "Aizen, Paris authorities won't detain him or pick him up without a crime on their soil, and if that happens, he's theirs."

"Dammit. Get us four flights to Paris." He turned on her, making her take a step back. "Where's Esparo?"

"He went to get Grimmjow, like you told him."

He tucked a second smaller handgun in the holster at his ankle as she watched. "Ichimaru said to follow. That's what we're doing."

A wary look crossed her face. "I don't think he meant for us to leave the country, sir."

He took a step toward her, seeing her hesitate to hold her ground. "Four tickets, Thomason. We're full personal on this now."

She nodded numbly. "I'll get the tickets."

He stormed through the desks as several clerks hurried to get out his way. "Get Esparo and Grimmjow, too!"

* * *

Shortly after midnight, Rukia stood awestruck in the hotel room, pulse racing as she looked around at the cream colored baroque wainscoting and gilt trim of the ceiling appliqué, holding her breath at the very air that seemed flavored with luxury. She'd stood there for a full five minutes, her suitcase and bags on the ruffled bedspread, the dim light of the lamp on the bombe chest spreading over the room, Ichigo's voice drifting to her as he waited in the doorway.

"Rukia," he said again, tentatively stepping farther into the room when she didn't move. "It isn't that grand, not for Paris."

She blinked at him several times before her eyes went to the open balcony doors. The faint outline of a steep triangle lit the skyline. "You can see the Eiffel Tower, Ichigo."

He nodded, grinning at her fascination. "We could go see it in person, but I know you're on a tight schedule."

She nodded, eyes staying on the landmark. "It's beautiful."

"Are you hungry?"

She looked around, finding the ornate French style phone by the bed. "I should call Michael."

"You've got time. Let's eat first."

Her eyes dropped to her skirt and blouse, smoothing the plum material sheepishly. "I'm not dressed for dinner out."

"You look fine to me." He shrugged, watching her awkwardness. "We could order in."

"Oh, no, that sounds so ..." She shook her head. "Is there anything casual open now?"

He nodded. "Sure. One of those taverns down the street. How about that?"

* * *

Ichigo and Rukia found a bistro serving hearty fare, the rustic atmosphere of the small establishment inviting relaxed dining and dancing to a live band that was nearing the end of their set for the late hour. The waitress showed them to a corner table that was heavily decorated with potted plants and water color paintings of Alsatian pastorals, a cozy nook that was out of the way of the few dancers on the small tile dance floor.

It took a round of wine and a breadbasket for Rukia to settle her guilty nerves at the table, Ichigo watching her fingers toy with the pewter handled flatware as they awaited their entrees.

"Stop faulting yourself," he finally told her.

She looked up quickly from buttering her role. "I'm not."

"Yes, you are. You're going to bring home more money than your husband will ever see in his life, Rukia." He grinned at her blush and poured her wine glass full again of the house's special merlot. "I've never seen anyone look so guilty for so long."

"Do you treat all your clients this well?" She sipped the wine sparingly, thankful her stomach was fully padded with bread.

He shook his head, but not in answer to the question. "Most of my clients are men in their seventies. They're willing to wait a few weeks."

She decided against her next question. "Who do we meet tomorrow?"

"A gentleman who greatly admires traditional gemstones. He's never turned down a well-cut, good quality stone."

"Do you cut stones, too, Ichigo?"

He nodded, drinking from his glass.

"Why don't you just recut store-bought stones and sell them?" She leaned her crossed arms on the table and studied him as the band played a slower tune. "They'd be clean."

He shook his head, holding her stare. "Rukia, that's not ethical. I only recut stones for good clients. Like York. But he never asked me to." His eyes fell over her face for a moment that took on a vulnerable look in the softer light. "Dance with me."

The rigidity came back to her features. "Oh, no, I couldn't..."

He leaned closer. "Why not?"

A flicker of debate caught her eyes and she shook her head.

"I know you're married, Rukia," he said in a lower tone. "Just a dance, nothing more."

She looked to the dance floor where several couples were swaying to the slow tune as the band leader sang mournful ballad in French. Her eyes went back to Ichigo, her answer wavering for a fleeting moment. "Not this time."

He nodded, and then sat back as their orders came.

* * *

Michael rinsed the plate in the kitchen sink, the humidity of the day lapsing into a muggy evening. He was on his last clean tank top and pair of jeans. Another day without Rukia and he'd have to breakdown and do a load of laundry.

The phone on the counter rang, and he reached for it as a female voice sounded from outside.

"Hello," he said into the earpiece.

"_Hi, Michael_," Rukia said, sounding far away.

He smiled and gave the phone his full concentration. "Hey, Rukia. How're you doing? I tried to call you earlier. I made foreman, honey."

"_Michael, that's great_," she said, the smile evident in her voice.

He nodded, pleased. "Goes into effect Monday. How's it going there?"

From outside the kitchen window Ambra's voice became discernible. "Here, kitty, kitty! Pharaoh!"

He glanced out the window to see the neighbor woman searching her yard, short skirt and sleeveless blouse appearing luminescent white in the dusk settling.

"_Oh, all right_," Rukia said. "_Paperwork and assessments. Grandpa left more than we thought. Kind of...well, I'll find out how much in a few days_."

Michael turned his head to look out the window as Ambra disappeared from his view. "Every little bit helps, Rukia," he said as a knock sounded at the back door. He stepped away from the counter to see Ambra looking through the screen. She waved and let herself in.

"Have you seen Pharaoh?" she asked quietly, smiling wider when she saw the phone at his ear.

Rukia's voice sharpened over the line. "_What's Ambra doing there?_"

Michael kept his attention on the call as Ambra closed the distance between them.

"Is that Rita?" she asked.

"Rukia, she's just looking for her cat," he said, watching Ambra's eyes rest on the phone, smile turning playful.

"_And you're helping her?"_

He shook his head, clearing his throat. "She just walked in, Rukia."

"_Then have her just walk out_."

Ambra stood closer, eyes rising from the phone to his.

"Honey, it's just a cat," he said, avoiding Ambra's gaze. "I miss you."

Ambra smiled, and said just above a whisper, "That's so sweet."

Michael turned away and focused on the call.

"_Is she gone, Michael_?"

He closed his eyes and nodded. "Yes. When will you be back?"

Ambra leaned over his shoulder, chin grazing his skin. "What do you drink?" she whispered.

He shook his head, and she sighed, moving off to search through the cupboards by the sink.

"_A few more days_," Rukia said over the phone line. "_Do you have enough to eat?"_

"Hell, I could feed an army with all you made," he said, turning to watch Ambra stand on tiptoe to find vodka and vermouth in an upper cupboard, her skirt inching up her thighs. She took a couple of coffee mugs out of another cupboard and busied herself making two martinis.

"_Michael, are you alone_?" Rukia's voice had a bristle to it.

"Yes, yes, Rukia," he said as Ambra hitched herself onto the counter and held up the mugs. "Just tired, hon. Hours at work are getting long."

Ambra grabbed the phone line and pulled at it, stretching the loopy coils, tugging until the taut cord made him take the few steps near her.

Rukia's tone grew troubled. "_Oh...I'll let you go. I just wanted to say goodnight, Michael_."

He nodded as the phone line drew him to the Ambra's side on the counter. "Goodnight, honey."

The line clicked, and he hung up, watching the auburn-haired woman pull at her white eyelet lace blouse which was half buttoned. She smiled and handed him a mug of martini.

"Congrats on your job!" She tapped his cup with hers. She took a long drink, watching him over the rim of the mug as he remained unmoving. "Oh, come on, Michael. You can't toast by yourself."

He downed half the drink, watching her push her hair over one shoulder, smiling at him. "Can't find your cat?"

She giggled. "Help me look?"

He finished the drink and set the mug on the counter as she hooked a bare foot around the back of his leg, pulling until he stood directly before her.

"You know," she said lowly, face tilting to his, letting her fingers trail up along the front of his shirt until they rested on the detailing of the _Nike_ slogan, "you don't have to watch through windows. Like what you saw?"

He watched her fingers trace the letters. "You should go home."

She lifted an eyebrow, voice low. "How about you come with me?"

He didn't answer for a long moment, his hand moving to her knee, sliding to where her skirt began. From outside came a long _meow_.

Michael leaned back and took her wrist, pulling her hand from his shirt. "There's your cat."

"He can wait."

He moved back as she slipped off the counter, pressing closer to him. "Go home, Ambra."

An exaggerated pout pulled at her lips as she looked up at him. "Alone?"

"Alone."

She smiled, shaking her head, and set the mug on the counter. He sighed as she went to the back door. She closed the main door, eyes still on him as she twisted the lock. She gave him a flirty look as she walked past and into the living room and up the stairs.

Michael stood alone in the darkening kitchen for several silent moments, willpower at odds with opportunity. Above him music from his bedroom radio floated down. He grabbed the coffee mugs and bottles of alcohol, and followed up the staircase.


	13. Chapter 13

For a few long moments Rukia sat on the bed in the darkened hotel room, the finery of her surroundings lost on her as she knew too well the tone in Michael's voice. She was tempted to call him back, her hand resting on the phone, fingers itching to pick up the receiver.

Instead she sat in the unlit room for five minutes, her heartbeat racing, her mind feeling strangely numb. She made herself breathe slower, and then went to the basket of fruit and wine on the table that the hotel had delivered and broke open the pink tinted plastic wrap.

It took a while of searching to find a corkscrew in the lamp stand by the bed. She worked out the cork and then found a patron glass wrapped in plastic in the bathroom. She left the light off, the small bedroom lit only by the filtered glow of moonlight that made its way in from the open balcony doors.

She filled the cup and drank half the wine without stopping.

"Damn Ambra," she mumbled to no one.

She sat on the bedside and filled the cup to the brim, sipping it down carefully as it threatened to spill.

She drank half of it before setting it on the lamp stand and reaching for the phone again.

She dialed, waited, hoped, and counted.

Three, four, five rings. Her fingers tightened around the cord, twisting. Eight rings. No answering machine after four rings.

She hung up. There were only three reasons Michael wouldn't answer the phone, and only one why the answering machine would be unplugged. She knew that intimately.

She finished the rest of the wine from the glass in a gulp and poured more, leaving only a third in the bottle, realizing only then it was burgundy, and rather strong. She left the glass on the stand and stood up.

_Damn Michael too_, she thought, pacing the room, her skirt and blouse suddenly too warm. She threw her suitcase on the bed and rummaged through it to find the pastel yellow over-sized t-shirt she'd packed for sleeping. She disrobed quickly, mind churning over the images her imagination created, wondering how Michael's back looked to Ambra as he pressed her into the mattress, if they were in her bed, _their_ marriage bed, or if --

She plunged her arm through the sleeves and settled the material around her, pulling at the hem so it reached mid-thigh on her legs.

But what if she was wrong? Maybe she'd jumped to conclusions.

Rukia found her glass and finished half of it, her previous conclusion ebbing stronger in her mind. She knew she was right, knew Ambra was a tease, and that Michael had always had a soft spot for their neighbor he'd never admit.

She followed the warm breeze of the night out onto the balcony, tossing the more painful thoughts to the side in her mind, feeling the impact of the wine in her head.

She leaned on the balcony rail, glass in her hand, and looked at the lights of the city below, lights seeming almost festive after her norm of small town life, beyond them the glittering Eiffel Tower. _Were all these people still up?_ she thought.

She smelled smoke faintly, and looked to the next balcony over to see Ichigo's dark silhouette against the building's side. He leaned to the wall, watching her.

"Did your call go through?" he asked before putting the cigarette back to his lips.

She nodded, and then added, "Yes." She turned, resting her back to the rail. "He got a promotion today."

He nodded at her detached tone. "You don't sound very happy about it." He dropped the cigarette butt and stepped on it. "Did you tell him where you are?"

"No. I think he's got enough on his mind right now," she said quietly, looking at her glass before taking a long drink from it. The wine seemed especially dry, not fruity as she had expected, drier even than her first drink earlier at dinner. "How'd you get into this business, Ichigo?"

"Kind of like you." He crossed the short balcony to stand at the rail nearest hers. He leaned his elbows on it, bending to see her better in the dark, her somber expression not escaping him. "I mean, my dad sold most of the stones I'm now buying back. Years ago, when it was really legal."

She nodded, her hand tightening on the glass.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded and finished her drink, desperate to think of anything other than what kept creeping into her mind. "What happens when you've bought back all your father's stones?"

He shrugged, watching her closely. "That will satisfy our buy-back policy. There're only about half a dozen original clients left. Then I retire."

She tried to laugh a little at the idea of someone so young retiring. "Retire?"

He nodded, eyes dropping over the outline her figure made against the open night. "Go somewhere I can put my name in the phone book. Get a dog."

She sighed, stepping closer to the balcony side near his. "Is that all you want?"

"No. There's more." He nodded to her glass. "You want more of that?"

She shook her head, sighing and watching him only a few feet away, able to discern more of his features at the distance. Pleasant features, she decided. "I should have danced with you."

He grinned, nodding. "Maybe we'll get that chance yet."

She attempted a smile, but it wouldn't form. She looked down at her empty glass, pushing thoughts of home out of her mind.

"What's wrong, Rukia?" he asked after a few moments when she fell silent again.

She shook her head, words forming at her lips, but refraining from being spoken aloud. She looked up at him, tempted to take him up on a refill, or at least a little more conversation. Instead she gave him a timid smile.

"Goodnight, Ichigo."

He nodded, watching her turn and go into the bedroom doorway. "Goodnight, Rukia."

* * *

On a commercial flight to Paris four Division Five agents sat near the back of the plane, Shoren hunched over her laptop in the dim light as most passengers before them tried to sleep. In front of her were Aizen and Esparo, beside her Grimmjow, who had taken up most of the legroom. She leaned forward to speak to Aizen in the seat in front of Grimmjow.

"He's at the Roquefort Hotel, Aizen," she said, eyes still on the reservation confirmation her computer screen displayed. "He could be moving by the time we land. I just got the email from the hotel manager, and they refuse to aid us."

In front of her Aizen was staring at the back of the sleeping man's head in the seat before him. "Why the hell not?"

She shrugged. "Procedure. He also states that if Paris arrests our target for any crime we'll have to fight to extradite."

He looked to Esparo, who was listening in. "We have people in the area. The French have always been real bastards about cooperation. D5 keeps a detach unit just outside Lyon. Not much, just old military planes, a few vehicles. Personnel doesn't get much action. Probably rusty as hell." He turned to see Shoren and Grimmjow better. "I don't want French authorities in this."

"Pick him up on our own?" Esparo asked.

Aizen nodded. "Call him a Homing Terrorist."

"Works every time," Grimmjow added.

Shoren sat back, frowning. "You don't want any help from the French?"

"As little as possible. This is our target." Aizen sat back in his seat, voice lowering as he looked to Esparo. "If we get him to Germany we can extradite no problem,"

"He's tagged," Grimmjow said. "Just follow him back to the States."

Aizen looked from him to Esparo. "There may be benefits in not following him home right away."

Esparo frowned at the older agent. "Such as what?"

Aizen nodded. "Shoren, get us a chopper and pilot on standby from the detach unit. Get us a warrant lien, too."

Esparo studied him. "What are you going to do, Aizen?"

"I'm going to follow our target, Agent Esparo. Just like we've been instructed." When Esparo continued to stare at him, he said, "Isshin Kurosaki had contacts all over the world, including France. We may be able to locate more than what Ichigo Kurosaki has on him."

Esparo was skeptical. "If it's him."

Aizen nodded. "It's him."


	14. Chapter 14

Rukia wasn't quite ready for the two hour drive with Ichigo the next morning. She'd calmed the slight hangover with a double dose of aspirin and promises never to drink so much again at once, but was still not exactly up to speed as they secured a car from the auto rental agency and headed out to the countryside east of Paris.

The bright sunlight mocked the burden in her heart, that eking notion that things weren't right at home, that nothing ever would be the same again. She'd called Michael that morning, seven in the morning hometown time, and he'd answered, still half asleep, unlike him to not be fully awake and dressed.

It was also unlikely that Rukia should hear the soft giggle in the background as Michael tried to make a conversation with her. His voice had suddenly sharpened, a "_Hush_" to someone else.

She hadn't pushed it, Rukia hadn't. She'd simply hung up on him. There wasn't anything more to say by phone.

"We can wait until later," Ichigo said two hours into the drive as the crops and farms became more spaced, each a mile or more from the last. He'd watched her during the drive, her dark eyes fastened on nothing out the window, his few attempts at conversation falling on her deaf ears. He didn't know her well enough to determine her moods, but he could read the wounded expression in her eyes easily enough. "Want to put this off until tonight?"

She shook her head, sweeping a strand of dark hair to one side that hung in her face. "I drank a bit much last night." She sighed, smoothing her plum skirt and brushing her lavender blouse with her hand. She glanced to him, studying his profile as he looked back out over the road in front of him, the sunlight making his hair seem especially bright. "I want to see some of this money you say these stones are worth."

He nodded, sparing a glance at her. "What happened with Michael last night?"

Rukia's eyes went back to the windshield, lips pursing. "My imagination."

Against his better judgment he nodded and let the topic slide. "... Okay."

* * *

Aizen was likewise visiting an auto rental agency in Paris, the same one Ichigo had earlier patronized, with Esparo, Shoren, and Grimmjow in company. The leasing agent had been little help, living up to the snobbish opinion Aizen had of most clerks he considered inferior but beyond his control.

He leased three cars and sent Shoren by taxi on a round of visits to the airports with orders to have Ichigo Kurosaki held by the authorities, or, failing that, by any other means she could. He'd also ordered her to have a helicopter and pilot from the Division Five detach unit at their disposal near the Germany border, something that had been greeted with only too much enthusiasm from the detach operator, making Aizen wonder how sharp the detach pilot could actually be. But he didn't think she'd have to prove her resourcefulness. According to the tracking monitor, Kurosaki's chip was en route east, by common roadway.

He stood with Esparo and Grimmjow outside the auto rental building awaiting their cars in the mid-morning sun. "We're on frequency B," he told them as they adjusted the hand-held monitors. "Track Kurosaki only; keep radio silence unless it's necessary. Any non-movement for over thirty minutes or if the signal goes blue, you contact me before moving in. Got it?"

Esparo nodded, but Grimmjow frowned at the monitor he was tuning.

"We just all three follow him? What's the point of separate vehicles?" the lighter-haired man asked.

Aizen nodded to the monitor. "I want him intercepted after he's made his contacts here. After his initial contact I want someone on him in all directions; Shoren's got the airports, but I'd rather take him to Germany ourselves, without any French interference."

Three rental cars pulled up to them beneath the agency awning and the drivers got out, each giving the keys to Aizen before leaving. Aizen handed a set of keys to Esparo and Grimmjow.

"You both follow me, and once Kurosaki has made his first contact, we'll split from there and take him, and maybe his contact." Aizen looked to the three modest sedans in drab beige and grays. "As soon as we get a confirmation that it's him, I'll have the helicopter released for the rendezvous point near Brichein. That's close enough to the border to get him into Germany and us back to any contacts he has here. Whoever is closest can take him or his contact, and we'll see to his other French contacts after he's in our custody."

"You're sure he has others?" Esparo asked, pushing his sunglasses father onto his nose in the bright day.

"Kurosaki has clients in every worthy European country, Ryan. He's got them in France." Aizen opened the door of the gray car. "My guess is this will be only the first of many. Once we've established that he's Kurosaki and still in business, we'll approach Ichimaru with how best to proceed."

Esparo looked to Grimmjow, who was watching Aizen suspiciously. "This wasn't in the parameters of our assignment, Aizen."

The older officer shrugged slightly, stare unwavering. "It is now. Let's go."

* * *

Ichigo looked around at the weedy overgrowth of shrubs and trees that lined the road, a mere car path making a dark indentation in the thick green and brambles at the edge of the road. By all accounts the path looked more abandoned as a trail than the entry into one of the more eccentric households he'd ever encountered, in any country. He'd only met with the man a handful of times, and only few times here. Most were Stateside.

Rukia was looking with apprehension down the unkempt drive as Ichigo turned the car down the two-track, the radio playing a pop tune in French. "Are you sure this is the right place?"

"Yeah," he said, slowing advancing the car into the tall tufts of grass and weeds that scraped the car's undercarriage. "This guys a real weird customer, but he knows his stuff."

The coniferous trees and tall bushes closed over the car greedily, long pine needles and thorny branches brushing the top, scratching piercing noises along the doors.

Ichigo muttered under his breath, eyes rising to the limb of a tree where an owl was perched, its mechanical head turning to look at the car as it passed, blinking yellow eyes. The car radio went dead.

"Dammit," Ichigo said, turning the knob on the radio. "Still up to his old tricks."

Rukia frowned, easing away from the door side toward him as a pine branch slapped at her through the open window. She zipped the glass up. "What do you mean by tricks?"

He leaned forward on the seat over the wheel as the foliage grew thicker. "This guy's a real inventor nut-type. Gadgets and gizmos, always tinkering with stuff." He groaned as they passed another owl, which also watched them, blinking. The car engine cut out. "I knew it."

Rukia's eyes grew wide as they sat in silence, Ichigo putting the car into park.

He turned the key, but there was nothing save a clicking sound from the starter. He sighed and pulled the key from the ignition. "We'll have to walk up. He's disabled the engine."

They got out of the car and left it in the weedy two-track and followed the overgrown path farther into the woods, the trees growing ever thicker, mosquitoes buzzing alongside them. Rukia watched Ichigo squash one of the insects behind his ear, seeing the slight redness there, neither aware of the tracking chip just under the skin.

She held her purse strap closer, keeping to his side as she stepped over the tall grass and weeds. She looked up at the low hanging green of the trees hovering over her, the sunlight only intermittent now, making the two-track appear dusk. She tripped over a mound of tangled vines creeping across the trail, and Ichigo caught her hand before she fell to her knees.

"Thanks," she said, letting him keep her hand as she tried to match his longer strides. "Does he know we're coming by?"

"Yup. Otherwise he probably would've shot us by now." He grinned at her look of alarm. "Probably shot us with salt rock, but shot us."

After ten minutes the winding two-track opened to a clearing where an enormous stone house squatted near a pond, weeping willows covering much of the grassy grounds, the sunlight here filtered through a black netting that obscured the entire open sky from view, held by thin poles arching overhead and the taller of the willow trees.

"It's like something out of a fairytale," Rukia said, unconsciously walking nearer Ichigo as she looked up. "Or a nightmare."

He nodded, eyes searching the grounds that appeared vacant. "Nightmare is more like it."

"Ha!" A small red-haired boy leaped from a stand of shrubs to their right, blocking their way, an air-rifle in his hands, barrel raised to his face to sight them in. "What's your business?"

Ichigo stopped them, glaring at the boy. "Where's your old man, Jinta?"

The boy's face screwed up into a more lethal frown. "He's not my old man, idiot! What do you want?"

"Go tell him Ichigo's here. We've got business."

Jinta considered this, gun lowering. He looked to Rukia's side and nodded. "Come on, Ururu. They're okay."

Rukia followed the boy's gaze to see a small dark-haired girl looking up at her from beside her. She yelped, startled, nearly stepping on Ichigo at seeing the girl. "Where'd you come from?"

The girl offered a small smile. "Welcome."

"Come on!" Jinta hollered, brandishing his gun. "You, too, Stateside!"

Ururu caught up with Jinta, avoiding his hand as he tried to poke her side, and took off for the house. Rukia watched with growing interest as the mammoth stone structure rose before them, seeming out of place in the forest, especially the menagerie of metal weathervanes sticking out, twisting in different directions above the tin roofing.

"If there's ever someone I'd thought would've cooked up a cleaner for the chemical wash for stones, it's this guy," Ichigo said more to himself as they reached the stone slab of a porch running the length of the front of the house and around one side beneath the arched windows. "Or maybe he has."

Rukia's fingers tightened in his hand, her violet eyes looking to a window as she saw a shadowy movement in it. "How do you know him?"

"My dad and him go way back," he said as they stood at the open doorway where Ururu was holding the door open for them. He caught himself from saying more. "Nothing you really need to know about, Rukia."

She nodded, wanting to ask more, but deciding against it.

"Come in," Ururu said meekly as they entered the sparse hall, the putty colored stucco walls stretching high around them, a wrought iron chandelier overhead burning with real candles.

To either side of the entryway open doors let into other rooms, muted light playing through the high arched windows, making more shadows on the wooden flooring. Rukia sniffed, detecting something earthy, fragrant like an herb, but unable to identify the scent.

"Well, well, I see you found us again," a woman's voice said from the doorway to their left.

Rukia flinched, her hand jerking in Ichigo's as they looked to the woman while the two children disappeared farther down the hall to a staircase. The dark-skinned woman's white blouse and tight yellow pants appeared luminous in the semi-light of the house, a smile on her lips as she looked from Rukia back to Ichigo.

"Walked?" she asked with a slight giggle.

Ichigo growled. "You know we did. Yoruichi, this is Rukia."

"Yoruichi is it now?" she said with a fuller laugh. "Not miss?"

Ichigo shook his head as Rukia looked up at him, curious. "We're here about --"

"I know what you're here for." Yoruichi crossed the hall to them, her smile turning affable. "Hello, Rukia. Welcome." She extended her hand, which the smaller woman shook. "Come in. Leave this guy to him." She nodded down the hall as another figure approached.

Rukia had never seen anyone quite like the man nearing them, wearing raised sandals and a billowing hunter green coat flowing behind him, absurdly striped pants in green and white, and a matching canvas hat on his head. He nodded to Yoruichi and then them.

"Hey, Stateside! Whatcha got? Ooh, who you got with you?"

Ichigo introduced Rukia to the man in the hat, who nodded, shaking her hand eagerly while waving a finger at Ichigo. "'Bout time you settled down, pup. You're no good on your own."

Ichigo glared at him. "I said _client_. Get it right, Urahara."

The man with the hat nodded, grinning at Rukia, who was blushing faintly. "So you did. Well, anyway, nice to meet you, Rukia." He turned to Ichigo again. "Come down and see what's on the slab."

Rukia balked at the idea, but when Ichigo took her arm and retreated down the hall with Urahara, she went, Yoruichi falling into step at her side.

They descended into the cavernous basement of the stone house that outdistanced the floor plan two-fold. The main room was a menagerie of workshop and lab equipment, experiments and devices half-done, hybrid organic creations in progress at different tables. To Rukia's relief the slab turned out to be just that, a large slab of granite with stools set around it like her old art room in high school.

Ururu and Jinta were already perched on two of the stools, a collection of small glass bottles and cloth rags in front of them, both tugging on a loupe, arguing.

Urahara gestured to the slab as Yoruichi stood to one side, leaning against another table, watching them in the fluorescent lighting from overhead. "Standard stones, typical cuts?"

Ichigo nodded, pulling out a stool for Rukia. She climbed onto it, settling her skirt better as Yoruichi looked on.

"She wants her money now, before we leave," Ichigo said as he and Urahara took stools at the slab.

The man with the hat nodded. "That's why you're here in person and not using a currier. Kinda thought that odd." He leaned on his elbows on the smooth slab, grinning at Rukia. "Let's see what you got."

She placed her purse on the slab and opened it, setting two pouches on the granite, looking to Ichigo. "Is he safe?" she asked in a low tone.

He nodded, grinning, easing the concern in her eyes a notch. "You can trust him. I won't let him rob you, Rukia."

She nodded, and passed the pouches over to him.

Urahara drummed both sets of fingers on the slab in front of him, smiling congenially below the hat. Ichigo looked into one of the pouches, and then cinched the drawstring tight and set it back beside the purse. He pushed the other to his host.

Rukia put the pouch before her back in the purse, watching Urahara pull out the cosmetic containers with the petroleum jelly and gemstones.

"Using the Vaseline? Good idea." Urahara nodded as he opened a jar marked face cream. He slid it and the pouch to Jinta and Ururu at the other end of the table. "Take that goo off those and quick."

Jinta crossed his arms, giving the man a pout. "How much?"

"How much?" Urahara scratched the back of his head, making his hat tilt. "How 'bout I don't take your rock salt away from you, how 'bout that much?"

Jinta's pout increased, but Ururu pulled the pouch closer and picked a soft rag from the pile before them.

"Good job now, kiddies," Urahara said, smiling.

Jinta grumbled something, and then grabbed a rag and one of the jars and set to work removing the slick jelly.

"Oh, hey, I want to show you something," Urahara said, standing and hurrying to another table where a sheet was draped. He lifted it just enough to pull a tray from beneath, and set it before Ichigo on the slab. On it two clear bottles of colorless liquid rattled, a sponge, tweezers, and a cotton swab nearby.

Rukia leaned closer to the slab as Ichigo blocked part of her view of what lay before Urahara.

"You've developed a cleaner?" Ichigo asked hopefully, watching as the other man set out the tray's contents.

"No, but this is close." Urahara opened one of the bottles. "Give me a hundred Euro bill."

"Now wait a minute," Ichigo began, warily seeing Jinta chuckle.

"I'm gonna make it undetectable," Urahara said, refraining from using Ichigo's last name as he looked to Rukia watching intently. "Fork it over."

Ichigo pulled his wallet from his pants, making Rukia move to avoid his elbow. He handed the other man a bill from his wallet. "How undetectable?"

Urahara sighed. "Sadly, only temporarily. Nothing permanent, but permanency isn't my ambition. What good would it be if you can't use it at all?" He dipped a cotton swab in the bottle of clear fluid and drew the cotton end along the metal strip in the Euro bill, lending an acidic smell to the air that dissipated quickly. He reached under the table and produced a cashier's scanning gun and zipped it over the monetary note, grinning when the gun didn't beep in recognition.

Ichigo nodded. "They've been doing that with pumice soap for six month."

"Ah, but this doesn't have to be washed off, Ichigo, and it doesn't abrade the strip inside." He held up the note, waving it. "It has a twelve hour lifespan, after which it fades and is usable -- and detectable -- again. Long enough to get you out of almost any country in Europe."

"Not bad," Ichigo said, nodding as Urahara handed the note back to him.

Rukia looked across the table to where Ururu and Jinta were rubbing the jelly off the stones, a small pile amounting to one side in front of the girl, both of their heads bowed, concentrating on their work. She looked to her side as Yoruichi stepped there, leaning one elbow on the table, smiling at her.

"How about we go up and have some tea? Leave these two jokers to their parlor tricks," she said with a nod at the men hunched over another tray of chemicals Urahara had brought to the slab.

Rukia looked to Ichigo, who nodded.

"How long will this take us?" she asked, moving closer to him, eyes on the children at their own work.

He looked from the stones to her, watching her eyes as they followed the stones being cleaned. "Maybe an hour. Don't worry about them. I'll watch them."

She nodded hesitantly, hovering between complete trust and taking Yoruichi up on her offer of tea.

His eyes went to her lips, pausing before rising to meet her eyes again. "Trust me, Rukia. No one here is going to cheat you."

At the word her face stiffened, and she made a conscious effort to nod, sighing. "Okay."

He grinned, squeezing her hand briefly. "Good. Get your tea."


	15. Chapter 15

Aizen sat in the rental car two miles from where they'd last detected the tracking chip from Ichigo Kurosaki. He'd parked to the side of the road near a heavily wooded hill where he could see the roadway before him clearly, but was not immediately visible from the road behind him.

He knew it was Kurosaki; he hadn't any doubts about that. His preliminary work from years back after Isshin Kurosaki's death was his own endeavor, not agency-related, and the younger Kurosaki had disappeared before his study had come to fruition. But he knew it was the right boy, now a man.

He looked down at the small light on the sweep unit monitor, which had remained stationary for fifteen minutes. The signal had frozen in seemingly nowhere, broadcasting stopped, indicating that something was jamming it, but not dead. He was uncertain exactly what it meant, but had ordered Esparo and Grimmjow to cover the two other roads leading to the surrounding area with instructions to pull over and park but stay aware.

His radio crackled and Esparo's voice came over it. the twenty minute wait already evident in the younger man's impatient tone. "You want us to just sit here and wait, Aizen?"

Aizen nodded and held his radio closer, an unfolded map in the seat next to him. "Sit there and wait, Ryan. He's got to take one of these roads out. Are you in position, Grimmjow?"

"Yes, I'm here," Grimmjow's sour tone came back. "I think we should move in and --"

"I'll do the thinking," Aizen snapped, suddenly piqued with the temporary subordinate. "Listen, we've got no authority here, so let's keep the locals out of it. Kurosaki's tag is covered, and he's got to move sometime. Keep your eyes open, and don't let him pass. First one to find him takes him to the chopper outside Brichein. I want him in the air and on the ground just over the Germany border at our rendezvous point. Whoever gets to him first."

"Yes, sir," Esparo said, followed by an affirmative grunt from Grimmjow.

Aizen sat back and watched the afternoon sun stretch across the French countryside, hoping his patience would pay off before Ichimaru suspected anything.

* * *

The occupants of the stone household were a strange collection of odds and ends, Rukia had decided as she finished tea with the woman called Yoruichi, but she was guessing the most baffling one yet was the man introduced as Tessai. She couldn't tell if the strapping fellow who served the tea and then went outside to '_adjust the owls'_, as he put it, was a butler, a handyman of sorts, or the children's weird mad uncle.

It didn't much matter, she finally decided as Ichigo returned from the depths of the basement with Urahara. The two men joined them where she and Yoruichi sat on the porch that opened to a view of the pond, a mild breeze lifting the dark-skinned woman's dark purple-cast hair. Rukia hadn't learned what Yoruichi was, exactly, either. In fact, she didn't know who anyone in the group of people in Urahara's house were, or how they were or were not related to each other. Certainly the children didn't look anything like him. Rukia was quite sure Jinta didn't look like anyone she'd ever seen.

"Seven-hundred-thousand," Urahara said, nodding at Rukia as he and Ichigo met them on the porch, looking smug and magnanimous at the same time. "Agreeable to you, Rukia?"

At the number Rukia had looked to Ichigo, who was grinning at her. "Dollars?"

"USD, yup," Urahara said, nodding.

Yoruichi stood up, lending a feline grace to the movement, eyes going to Urahara. "You're sending them some paint, too, right?"

Rukia set her tea cup on the tray beside Yoruichi's empty one, frowning as she got to her feet. "Paint?"

"The temporary undetectable blocking liquid we saw earlier," Ichigo explained as she stood beside him, watching her eyes go to Urahara. "What do you think of the amount, Rukia?"

She looked up at him, standing on tiptoe to his ear, her voice dropping so only he could hear. "That's not the number you told me before we left, Ichigo."

He nodded, a hand going to her arm, his voice matching hers in volume. "The other buyer will bring you the bulk of your profit. He's the one who'll be interested in your more exotic stones. Trust me, Rukia, the money will be what I promised."

Urahara cleared his throat, grinning slyly at their exchange as Yoruichi collected the tray, watching their guests. "I deal in the more common stones, Rukia. The pup here has clients with more elaborate tastes than mine. You'll get your money, whatever he's promised you. I've known the -- Ichigo's family long enough to vouch for that."

Rukia looked from him to Ichigo, nodding. "Seven-hundred-thousand is fine," she said, smiling, her breath faltering just a little at saying the amount aloud. She looked down at her purse.

"Oh, we've got the big bills, don't worry 'bout lugging around a suitcase," Urahara said, waving off her unvoiced concerns. "You do want cash, right?"

Ichigo nodded. "Right."

It took half an hour to wrap up the transaction, and the packet of money fit neatly into Rukia's small purse, she noted, even with the remaining pouch of gemstones and her wallet. A small bottle topped with an eyedropper stopper was included, and Urahara had given Ichigo instructions on how to apply it, and how often to use it to avoid being detected. Rukia listened in, feeling as if she'd wandered into someone else's life for a few hours as her surroundings caught up with her.

The mosquitoes were real enough, however, as she and Ichigo and the large man named Tessai walked the two-track back to the car late that afternoon.

"He can't find a better way than cut the engines?" Ichigo said, batting at a mosquito, and then flipping one off that landed on the top of Rukia's dark hair. "Reversing battery connections? Sounds like something Jinta would do."

Tessai spared him a look of disdain, in his hand the strap to a car battery he carried. "It works, Ichigo. And it's basic."

"Yeah, a little too basic for his gadgety mind."

They reached the rental car where it had stopped, the buzz of insects louder than when they'd left it two hours ago. Ichigo opened the passenger door for Rukia and she got in and sighed, her purse clutched before her on her lap as he rounded the car and opened the driver's side door.

He pulled the car's hood lever beneath the dashboard and the hood outside popped up a few inches. He closed the door and joined Tessai waiting at the car's front bumper, where their conversation was muted to Rukia inside.

Her fingers pressed against the purse's top flap, her mind slightly numbed to the money inside. _$700,000,_ she thought. _It would take Michael_ _-- how long? Ten, fifteen? Nearly twenty years to make that kind of money_.

Cold rushed through her head as she thought about the amount. In front of her the hood was raised, Ichigo's grouching tone reaching inside the car as he debated something about mechanics with Tessai.

Rukia dipped her head to see beneath the hood, watching the old defunct battery being replaced with the new one.

_Gets paid for cheating,_ her mind kept repeating. Insult to injury after his last affair.

She tried to push thoughts of the morning's brief conversation with Michael out of her mind as the hood slammed shut, giving her full view of Tessai standing akimbo in front. Ichigo opened the car door and slid behind the steering wheel.

"These eccentric wizards are all the same," he grumbled as he fit the key into the ignition. "They can _do_, but they can't _undo_." He turned the key. Nothing happened. He tried a few more times, cursing after each twist of the key. "We're still within residual range. We'll have to push it back and try again." His eyes went to where her hands were tight on the purse. He grinned, bringing a tentative smile from her. "Slide over here and guide the car while we push it back."

She nodded, her voice failing her as she stifled thoughts of Michael.

"You all right, Rukia?" he asked in a lower tone, frowning at the wounded expression shifting back over her face.

She nodded again, setting the purse to one side, attempting a better smile. "Fine."

He didn't believe her, but nodded. "Okay."

He got out of the car and she positioned herself behind the wheel.

At the car's front bumper Ichigo and Tessai bent to lean heavily against the hood on either side of it. Rukia put the gear shifter into neutral and the men heaved it into motion. She turned in the seat to see the trail behind her and directed the car back down the overgrown path, close-fringing branches slapping against the closed window as the men grunted at the effort, with Ichigo muttering curses at the technology and the heavier model of German car.

Ten minutes later Ichigo and Rukia were back on the road, both relieved to be moving again, but she with not all the satisfaction that should have come with the new contents of her purse.

Ichigo glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, her lingering pensive expression not what he'd anticipated after the visit to Urahara. "Don't worry, Rukia. The German contact is worth at least one-point-five million."

The amount nearly made her dizzy, but she sighed, trying to focus on the events of the afternoon rather than her home front. "With the twelve hour window for the paint stuff," she said, the chemical terminology still alien to her, "can we get home without being discovered?"

"Not a problem." He turned the car down the next slope of road, following the pavement that wound between fields divided by rows of trees. "We might have to re-treat the bills on the way, on the plane, but that won't be a problem. They're all large bills, not too many to do."

She frowned, looking to her handbag. "They're _very_ large bills, Ichigo."

He nodded. "Don't worry about that. I know a place you can get them exchanged."

They passed a gray car parked to one side of the road without seeing it until it was behind them, taking little notice of it.

But Grimmjow had seen them, his quick eyes darting from the now active tracking monitor he'd been watching to the driver as the car passed him. He grabbed his radio and pressed the button at the side as he turned the steering wheel.

"I've got a paint," he said into it. "It's him. There's someone else in the car. I think it's a woman.

Aizen's voice came over the radio. "A woman? She's immaterial. Go ahead and take him."

Grimmjow already had the car in gear, making the sharp hook turn that put him behind Ichigo's car, farther back in the lane, but closing the gap with speed. For a few moments Ichigo was oblivious to the menace behind him in the gray car, but Grimmjow's intentions soon became apparent.

The gray car matched the speed of Ichigo's car as the front rental sped up, taking the sloping road at increasingly dangerous velocity as Ichigo scowled into the rear view mirror. Grimmjow's hands tightened on the steering wheel as he pulled the car alongside Ichigo's door, topping a hill that caught them blindly on the other side of a curve.

Ichigo glared at the rude driver in the gray car, swerving to the outside of the lane as the passenger side tires caught the shoulder gravel, making Rukia brace herself against the back of the seat, eyes widening. The gray car lurched ahead and into the lane before them, slamming on the brakes, forcing Ichigo to stomp on the brakes, halting the car to barely avoid colliding. Grimmjow threw open his door.

"Dammit! You piece of shit bastard!" Ichigo yelled out the window as Grimmjow approached them. He threw the car into reverse as the agent kicked the driver's door, extending an arm, a gun clicking in Ichigo's face.

"Put it in park! Hands up! Both of you!" Grimmjow yelled.

Ichigo's hands tensed on the wheel as the gun barrel inches from his face leveled on Rukia's terror stricken form. "Who are you?"

"Out! Now!" Grimmjow yanked open the door and waved to them with the gun.

Ichigo threw the car into park, eyes narrowing on the taller man as he eased out from behind the wheel. Grimmjow's attention went to Rukia, who was trying to force herself to follow Ichigo out the driver's side. Ichigo stood at the back door, the gun still aimed at his forehead as Grimmjow reached one large hand into the car and pulled Rukia out by her shoulder.

"What the hell do you want?" Ichigo bit out.

Grimmjow pushed Rukia in front of him towards the gray car, nodding for Ichigo to follow. "You, too!"

Rukia muted a cry as Grimmjow shoved her into the back seat of his car seconds later.

"Get in. You're driving," he told Ichigo, pointing the gun toward driver's door.

Ichigo glanced to Rukia's shaking form in the back seat, his jaw tightening at the look of horror on her face. He opened the door and got behind the steering wheel. Grimmjow got into the back seat beside Rukia and poked the gun barrel at the back of Ichigo's head before going to Rukia.

Ichigo glowered at him in the rear view mirror, eyes darting from the agent to Rukia, the gun now pressed up to her temple, her face pale.

"Where to?"


	16. Chapter 16

Grimmjow directed Ichigo to pull the car onto the road, leaving the other rental car cocked to the side near the shoulder. For a few moments no one spoke except Grimmjow, punctuating his commands to simply follow the road with jabs of the gun barrel against Ichigo's shoulder.

Rukia sat speechless beside the agent, her face stark white when he occasionally turned the gun in her direction. Ahead of them the mountains bordering on Germany could be seen, a few of the peaks rising ominously closer above the broadleaf trees to the east.

"Turn here," Grimmjow said as a secondary dirt road opened to the side.

Ichigo turned the car onto the less traveled road that sunk into a more heavily treed region that eclipsed the view of the mountains. After another mile of silence a field of low cropped wheat opened to the left, a little used two track for farm equipment serving as an entry.

"Make a turn here," Grimmjow said, nudging the gun into the back of Ichigo's head.

In the opening squatted an early model black Huey helicopter, minimally equipped and without armaments, its black paint peeling in spots. Above it the blades whirred on low, inside the middle-aged, infrequently deployed D5 pilot sat in the cockpit, waiting.

Ichigo bristled at the sight of the aircraft, four years of his past catching up with him. "Damn. What the hell's going on?"

"Park here and cut the engine," Grimmjow said, his hand closing vice-like around Rukia's arm until she yelped in pain. "Throw the keys out the window."

Ichigo scowled and stopped the car and shut off the engine, tossing the keys onto the ground outside the open window. "What the --"

Grimmjow cuffed the back of his head with the butt of the gun and opened the back door. He got out and yanked Rukia with him, angling the gun at Ichigo. "Out now!"

A moment later Rukia found herself manhandled across the field and shoved into the wide open loading door of the helicopter, the strap of her purse over her shoulder and neck, the purse itself clutched in her shaking hands as she stumbled into the waist high cargo area. She fell to her knees inside and Grimmjow pushed her brusquely in farther and nodded to Ichigo.

"You, too!" he yelled over the noise of the blades.

Ichigo climbed into the helicopter, noting the bay area and sides stripped of any equipment and standard insulation. He looked to Grimmjow with new interest before glancing at the pilot, whose heavy earphones were what he knew to be standard military issue, the man's eyes shielded by sunglasses, but on Grimmjow.

Grimmjow made a circular motion to the pilot, and the noise of the blades increased voluminously, lifting the Huey from the field in a cloud of dust and loose grain.

"What the hell do you people want?!" Ichigo demanded as Grimmjow looked between him and Rukia. He reached to pull her small form closer, but the agent knocked his arm away from her, making her cringe to the side, her hand braced against the vibrating metal.

"I'll ask the questions!" Grimmjow called over the noise, gun at his side but pointing to Ichigo. "Who's got the rocks?"

Ichigo's hand tightened on the static line rail overhead as the aircraft made a sudden rise to clear the trees below. "_That's_ what this is about?"

Grimmjow turned the gun on Rukia, cocking it, the click making her press her back to the shaking side of the Huey. "You got them?"

"I do!" Ichigo told him, hand reaching for her trembling one at her purse.

Grimmjow lowered the gun a little. "Then we don't need her."

In a flash he put a hand to Rukia's shoulder and shoved her out the loading door.

She screamed, arms flailing as she tumbled out, her hip bouncing off the floor edge, her hands clasping at the skid. She clung to it desperately, arms hitching her up for a better hold as the purse twisted wildly to her side in the wind.

Ichigo made a lunge for her as she was pushed out, but Grimmjow stuck the gun to his head.

"Pull her in!" Ichigo shouted above the noise of the blades and Rukia's scream that had turned into a gasping sound.

"I'm not here for her." Grimmjow took a step closer to the door and pointed the gun at Rukia's wide-eyed face. Ichigo tackled him, forcing the larger man into the back of the passenger seat behind him, the arm with the gun over his head, a shot erupting in the small aircraft.

The pilot made a lurching movement as the bullet entered his skull behind his ear, flopping onto the controls. The Huey made a skewed lean, sending it nose down and angled toward the mountains ahead, forcing a louder scream from Rukia as her hold loosened on the skid. Her eyes were on the countryside far below, her arms locked around the landing gear in an aching hold.

Ichigo twisted Grimmjow's arm over his head, shoving his other elbow up into the man's throat before feeling a large fist slammed below his ribcage and another across his mouth. Ichigo grunted at the impact, but returned a punch of his own just below Grimmjow's sternum, followed by another.

The agent doubled over, giving Ichigo the opportunity to win the gun. Ichigo stepped back as the other man folded, but remained on his feet. He held the gun a foot from Grimmjow's face and eased to the door, eyes flicking to Rukia's loosening hold on the skid.

He knelt at the opening, back braced against the side edge, hand reaching for hers. "Come on, Rukia! Reach up!" He looked back to Grimmjow. "Don't move, you bastard!"

Grimmjow glared back at him, movements stilling.

Rukia pried one hand from the skid and lifted it to Ichigo, the wind flinging her words and cries away as she tried to utter them. His hand gripped her wrist tightly and he pulled her up in one quick movement.

She scrambled into the cargo area, clawing to the side of the craft, huddling against the metal, panting as her arms closed over her stomach, eyes wide on the men.

"Are you all right?" Ichigo asked over the noise.

"No!"

Grimmjow made a lunge at the controls as the pilot's body fell to one side against them, sending the Huey into a sudden swerve that put them on line with the approaching mountain side ahead. Ichigo grabbed the back of the agent's jacket and threw him the opposite wall, the gun to his forehead.

"Who are you with?!"

Grimmjow's eyes narrowed on him. "Go to hell!"

Ichigo spared a glance to the windshield to see the mountain nearing ahead of them. He looked around at the floor of the small craft, spying two bundles of parachutes strapped to the floorboard. He stepped closer to one and kicked it looser from its anchor bolt.

"Rukia, put that 'chute on." He looked back to Grimmjow. "One more time! Who do you work for?"

Rukia reached hesitantly for the parachute bundle, pulling it completely free of its snaffle. She turned it over a few times, shaking her head in confusion and ignorance.

Grimmjow cocked his head to one side as Ichigo pressed the gun barrel to his forehead harder. Ichigo gripped the agent's jacket collar and flipped it over to expose a D5 badge pinned beneath.

He frowned in growing recognition. "Division Five," he mumbled, his voice lost in the propeller noise.

"I can't use this, Ichigo," Rukia said from his side.

"Put it on!" Ichigo's glare turned back to Grimmjow. "You're all a bunch of lousy bastards," he said loud enough to be heard. "Every single one of you."

Grimmjow stood to his full height. "You're going down, Kurosaki."

Ichigo looked to the mountain before the Huey and stepped away from the agent. He pulled Rukia to her unsteady feet and made her grip the gun. "Hold this on him and don't be afraid of shooting!"

Rukia aimed the gun shakily at Grimmjow as Ichigo expertly strapped the parachute to her back, anchoring the purse beneath the waist straps and making quick work of the straddle straps below her skirt.

"You'll have to jump," he said close to her ear, his hands snugging the spring buckles across her chest. "Keep your feet and knees together. Let your knees take the landing."

"What?! I don't know how to do this!" The gun trembled violently in her hand, making Grimmjow take a step back at her aim.

"You'll have to!" Ichigo hooked the static line from the parachute to the overhead pull rail. He took the gun from her. "Jump!"

"No!"

Grimmjow dodged to the cockpit, pulling the pilot's body away, eyes darting over the controls.

Ichigo turned the gun on Grimmjow as the agent made a desperate pull at the controls as a mountain loomed ahead of them. He looked back to her. "Jump, Rukia!"

She shook her head, illegible words stammering out as he pushed her to the loading door edge. "No!"

He shoved her out, her scream dying on her lips. He sidestepped the static line as it slapped around the open doorway. A second later it tightened and he watched Rukia's small form lurch to a stop midair, her parachute pulling, blooming out behind her as she was lifted back up twenty feet.

He turned back to see Grimmjow pulling at the steering column, and then grabbed the remaining parachute from its anchor bolt on the floor.

* * *

Rukia's screams met dead air on the way down, her lungs wasting her gasps and curses in soundless efforts that left her nearly choking on oxygen-spent exertion. The static line pulled above her from the helicopter before snapping loose, jolting her back up as the parachute opened above her.

Below her she watched the swirling grain fields bounce away from her as her body was pulled up again, only to have the fields enlarge once again as she descended more slowly into a treed area. This time the drop was more serene, the noise of the helicopter fading, her speed retarded by the parachute. For a few brief moments it was surreally silent.

But then the treetops came up fast, too fast, growing in large green shapes until she crashed into them, all of Ichigo's instruction on how to land lost as she made a tangled, clumsy entry into branches, leaves, and snapping twigs.

Scratches ran up her arms as she plummeted into the tree, leaves crossing angrily at her cheeks until her arms flung up over her face out of self-preservation. Suddenly she came to a stop, the straddle straps between her legs making her ripped skirt bunch up in a painful halt that knocked out what little breath she had left, startling birds in the limbs around her.

For a stunned moment she tried to force herself into breathing again, dangling in the late afternoon sun by the parachute cords like an absurd puppet, swinging for a moment before flailing aimlessly to free herself.

"Ichigo!" she screamed, looking up at the encompassing canopy of treetops overhead, her tone incensed with the last of her strength. "Ichigo! Damn you!"

She fought the cords for a while, succeeding only in tiring herself and becoming more tangled among the branches and leaves.

A shocking roar of collision suddenly ripped through the air as the helicopter smashed into the mountain side, scaring every bird and insect into screeches that hadn't already left the trees at Rukia's entry.

She looked in the direction of the sound of the terrible noise, hands stilling on straps at her shoulders. "Oh, no ... Ichigo..."

A billow of white and gray smoke bubbled into her limited view among the treetops, the smell of fire growing with the wind. She looked back to the shoulder straps, trying to unfasten the clasps, her fingers numb and her vision growing bleary as tears lent her eyes. She sniffed, casting her gaze skyward again.

"Ichigo..."

* * *

Two miles down the road, in two different directions, two rental cars came to screeching stops a mile from the mountain crash. In one Esparo was gawking at the smoke coming from the side of the mountain halfway up the slope.

"Damn," he said, pulling the car to the side of the road at a crop field lined with trees. He looked down at his handheld radio as Aizen's tone came over it.

"_Grimmjow! Grimmjow_!" Aizen's voice was livid.

Esparo picked up his own radio, eyes going back to the mountain. "Damn, did you see that, Aizen?"

_"I saw it_," Aizen responded.

"There was a parachute before impact," Esparo said, watching the smoke being carried away by a higher draft.

A moment of dead air, and then Aizen said: "_I don't think it was Grimmjow. Get me a ground crew from the nearest source and a medic unit. Now we've got our grounds, Esparo. Meet you at the collision site_."

Esparo nodded. "Will do."


	17. Chapter 17

Evening lowered slowly over the French countryside that was snugged up to the German border, descending on the woman who'd recently freed herself from the tree, but not without a fight.

Rukia had spent ten minutes easing up on individual parachute straps to create enough slack in the taut nylon straps in order to unbuckle the snaps at her waist, shoulders, and straddle strap of the harness. After the last waist nylon was freed, she was allowed to drop the twelve feet to the root-riddled ground of oak and elm trees, which left her with a slight limp for the first half hour of her wanderings. She had little choice of avenues, and as her eyes rested on the tops of the mountains over the treetops where she'd last seen the Huey head, she chose that direction.

Her wanderings led her eventually to a railroad track that opened up along a wide gulley where the forest thinned after nearly an hour of foot travel. In that time her mind had covered more ground than her feet. Foremost in her thoughts, after the scrapes and scratches on her arms and chin from her ascent into treetop hell, was Ichigo with-no-last-name.

She closed her eyes, fighting tears as she stumbled up the bank the railroad track was perched on in the thickly weeded gulley. "You can't be dead, Ichigo," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. "Please don't be."

She wiped her hands on her skirt, the hem hanging torn in a few spots, her purse still intact, but the straps frayed and twisted from her freefall. She clutched it closer, feeling the pouch of stones and packet of money inside. Everything was still there. She'd checked it.

Her eyes went down the tracks heading south that disappeared around a curve into the treed gulley of high weeds, and then to the tracks going northward into the growing dusk where the gulley dissolved away to higher sides of the foothills, running as far as she could see into the trees.

She sighed and headed off north.

"Oh, I'll go with you to France," she said aloud, mimicking herself chidingly as she recalled her own words from a few days back, scowling as she made her way over the uneven ties crossing the track rails amid the large gravel. "I can't wait two or three weeks. As long as Michael doesn't find out." Her frown intensified, fingers gripping the purse tighter. "Damn you, too, Michael."

Rukia cussed him out over and over for the next half hour, each time replaying words from his last confession, his last heartfelt apology, his last affair with that tramp from down town. She mumbled the words aloud until her mouth was dry, her lips tired from four letter words, their impact still leaving her numb.

She took the slight turn of tracks that made an elongated gentle bend into the darkening hollow of tree-lined rails that closed tunnel-like into the foothills near the German border. Quiet night slowly fell over the tracks, deepening thoughts of assorted fears in her mind, the only light coming from half a moon overhead in the clear heavens.

Sounds of gravel shifting ahead in the dark made Rukia halt, her senses tensing as footsteps approached. She didn't breathe as she darted hastily down the raised track bed and into the thick thickets of bushes to the side. She crouched low as the steps neared, a two-legged animal, she knew.

A tall figure became visible a moment later out of the darkness, male in form. Rukia estimate its bearing for a few steps more, and then stood up slowly.

Ichigo stopped abruptly on the railroad tracks, attentions snapping to the short outline of someone in the thicket to the side. After a few seconds he grinned and jumped off the tracks and half tumbled down the bank to where she stood.

"Hey! You're all right!"

Rukia had no chance to move as he reached her before she was certain it was even Ichigo, and then her instincts took hold. She shoved his chest with both hands, which did little more than make him take a step back.

"Ugh! _All right_?!" She glared up at him in the moonlight. "What is your idea of _all right_?!"

His voice changed to concerned. "Are you hurt?"

"You pushed me out of a _helicopter_!" She made another shove at him, but he caught one of her wrists.

"You had a 'chute on, Rukia. It's not like --"

"I don't know anything about parachutes!" She made a wild wave, throwing off his hand, her fierce look lost on him in the poor light. "You didn't even tell me how to _open_ the damn thing! What if it didn't snag?"

"It didn't snag." He reached for her wrist again, this time in a tighter grip that she didn't shrug off, pulling her with him as he climbed up the bank back to the tracks. "It's designed to open on its own. The static line connected to the 'copter pulls it for you." His hand moved from her wrist to her hand, closing firmly around her fingers so they were cupped in his. "Well, Division Five knows we're here. Don't worry about who they are. The less you know the better."

They followed the tracks back the way Ichigo had come, the moon lighting their way well enough to follow, but not showing the unevenness of the ties and gravel, making Rukia slip a few times. Ichigo steadied her gait as they walked, sounds of night insects around them increasing.

"We can't go back to Paris," he said after a moment. "We've got to get you home."

"What about the buyer in Germany?" she asked, fingers gripping his tighter as she stumbled over a tie.

He sighed. "Not now. There's too much attention on us. I'll get the money and buy the stones from you later." He looked down at the top of her dark head. "But we've got to get you out of here."

After a few moments they fell into step together, her shorter strides not matching his longer ones, but he slowed hi pace to keep with her. She looked to her hand locked in his, her eye catching the rips at his short sleeves, the few tears at his collar.

She looked up at him, able to see little of his facial features in the dark. "Are you all right, Ichigo?"

"Yeah." He gave her a grin.

Her attention returned to their progress on the next slight curve in the tracks ahead. He was alive, and it set her mind more at ease than she anticipated, bringing a slight smile to her face and a small giggle.

He looked at her, hand squeezing hers. "That's what I thought."

Her attention shot to him. "What?"

He nodded, grin widening at her look of confusion. "You liked it."

She made a mock sigh of exasperation. "I don't know what you're talking about, Ichigo."

He leaned down and said in her ear, "The jump. You liked it."

She smiled more, blushing in the dark as he straightened beside her. "Well, when it opened ... I was still scared, but -- It was so quiet coming down," she said with a wistful sigh, her steps bringing her closer to his side. "I've never done anything like that before."

His eyes went to the side of her face and he picked a few loose twigs out of her dark hair. "You did fine."

* * *

The helicopter had crashed just France side of one of the shorter Vosges mountains on the border with Germany, leaving metal and glass debris scattered over acres of angular siding for the emergency crew to rummage through.

They'd found little that helped Aizen and Esparo as they stood among the French medical personnel, but the few things they did not find were of more assistance. Aizen looked over the crash site where temporary high beam lights were erected to illuminate the crushed body of the helicopter and mangled debris.

Around him medical staff was jabbering in French, largely ignoring him and Esparo, most shaking their heads at the piles of bodies on two stretchers to the side of one ambulance van. Aizen joined Esparo at one of the stretchers where the younger agent was speaking by phone with Shoren.

"They already identified that one as Grimmjow," Esparo said to Aizen with a thumb jerk to the stretcher nearest the van's rear doors where a body bag lay with remains. "Badge and all."

Aizen nodded, eyes on the lump of distorted flesh that was a human body on the stretcher at his feet. "This is either Kurosaki or the pilot." He knelt beside the body bag that was half unzipped. He took a pen knife out of his pants pocket. "Let me speak to her."

"I'm turning you over to Aizen," Esparo said into the phone before handing it to Aizen. "D5 dispatch is sending over a kit to I.D. this one."

"Don't need it." Aizen held the phone to his ear. "Hold on, Shoren."

Esparo squatted beside the stretcher, a grimace forming as Aizen finished unzipping the bag.

"Kurosaki's tag is still active," Aizen said, using the knife to pick through the bulkier lumps in the bag where the skull was still in a larger piece than much of the rest. The tip of the blade lifted a few pieces of red and white substance as Aizen made a cursory search.

Esparo swallowed down his repulsion and glanced to the older agent before his eyes went back to the blade searching through the matter.

"He's heading for Germany, according to the last scan five minutes ago, on foot, judging from the slow progress," Aizen determined, intent on his digging. "When he reaches there we can extradite without problem."

"_He's making more progress than that,"_ Shoren said over the radio. "_An American sounding like Kurosaki just purchased a train ticket under the name Robert Taylor, Aizen. Station is four miles from your location, dinky little town. We'll lose him if he takes an underground_."

Aizen raised the tip of the knife blade, on it resting a spent bullet covered in red and white matter. "There it is, Ryan," he said, holding the flattened round closer to his partner. "I doubt Grimmjow capped the pilot." He held the phone closer, flicking the bullet back into the pile of soft flesh that had been the pilot. "When does the train leave, Shoren?"

"_Fifteen minutes, with ten minutes in he'll have access to an underground junction."_

Aizen stood up, sending an irritated glance around at the emergency crew milling around in the usual crash scene confusion. "Dammit, okay, have train security hold him on charges of killing an American pilot on French soil, Shoren. I'll deal with the politics later."

* * *

Ichigo and Rukia reached the train station at the base of the Vosges Mountains after dark, both looking less than par, in clothes that appeared to have been taken off the nearest homeless couple, and more than a little irritated at their trek. Ichigo raided the nearest snack machine and supplied them with packets of peanuts, stale candy bars, and a tepid liquid passing for hot chocolate after they'd made an effort at cleaning up in the public restrooms.

The station that popped up at the borderline village of a town they'd happened upon was small but adequate for the tiny town, barely a stop on the infrequent runs of passenger trains, the lobby no more than a few benches and the ticket counter that resembled something out of a an old film. Ichigo waited for Rukia to get as comfortable as possible on the wooden bench before approaching the ticket counter, where the elderly lone clerk watched them suspiciously, eyes narrowed as he patted his sparsely crowned head of hair.

Rukia held her purse in her lap, pulled close to herself as she hungrily devoured the nut infested chocolate covered candy bar, cheeks bulging as she watched Ichigo at the ticket counter. They were the only passengers waiting besides a huddle of three obese men at another bench against the far wall who were sleeping off the effects of a drinking binge, and there was little to look at in the small out-dated room except for posters and signs on the walls written in French and German.

She felt only a little less grungy from their three mile hike along the dark tracks, and her feet were aching from walking out all the sensibility of her low-heel flats. She raised the paper cup of lukewarm chocolate beverage and inhaled it in a slurp, coughing some at its weak flavor.

"So much for European cocoa," she mumbled, casting a glance at the decrepit-looking security camera parked in one corner of the ceiling, angled at the double-door entrance with a clear shot at the dark sidewalk outside.

_Not much going on in town_, she thought. There'd only been a few lights on in the tall buildings as she and Ichigo had arrived in town, and those were all at the tavern.

Ichigo finished up at the counter and sat down near her on the bench, sighing as he tore open his own candy bar from the snack machine. "We've got the next train out, departing in twenty-five minutes. Not that I think it'll be on-time," he said, biting off half of the chocolate bar in one chomp. He made a face of disappointment and looked disdainfully at the candy. "This is awful."

She scooted his hot cocoa that was on the bench between them closer to his leg. "This is worse."

He nodded, eyes falling over her face for a long moment as he chewed. "You look more put together." He put a finger to her chin, estimating the small scratches there, turning her head. "Not too bad for your first jump."

She rolled her eyes, one hand combing her hair still mussed from the long walk as his hand went back to his beverage. "I want a shower."

He nodded and sat back on the bench, one arm resting behind her along the wood. "We'll get across the border and find lodging at a nicer place than they've got here, Rukia."

"I hope so." She ripped open the bag of peanuts, glancing to the doors as a commotion was heard at the sidewalk outside. "Maybe the train's early."

Ichigo was watching the doors, too. "Maybe the bar crowd."

They watched as four policemen appeared on the sidewalk outside, all looking in at the pair on the bench before pushing through the doors. The blue-uniformed men looked to Ichigo for a moment, and then to the sleeping men farther on, before passing them and proceeding to the counter.

Ichigo didn't turn to watch them, but his senses pricked as they passed, hearing their low murmurs in French quicken. He finished the candy bar and crumpled the wrapper in his hands, leaning closer to Rukia as his arm dropped behind the bench backing.

"Don't say anything," he said in a low tone as she ate the last few peanuts, eyes wide on his as he spoke. For a moment he fought the urge to say other words, but time was of the precious so he said, "Remember, you don't know me."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, eyes searching his as she turned to look at the policemen behind her at the counter.

Two of the policemen were facing her, watching them without expression while the other two spoke with the clerk there, all three nodding in agreement. The two looked up from the clerk and leveled their attention on Ichigo, hands on their night sticks and gun holsters. There was a short command in French, and all four men advanced on the pair at the bench.

Rukia looked to Ichigo, who was still watching her with a peculiar interest, and was about to speak when a shout went up from one of the policeman.

"Hands in the air, please!" he said briskly in precise, heavily accented English, drawing his gun as Ichigo reached for Rukia's hand on the bench.

She made a whimpering sound as another man drew his gun and barked a command in French. Ichigo leaped to his feet and snatched Rukia around the waist, pulling her in front of him and facing the men with her as a shield.

His tight hold nearly knocked the breath out of her. "Ichigo, what are you --"

"Shut up and act scared. Back up," he said, burying his words in her hair by her ear, dragging her backwards as he withdrew toward the door.

"Halt!" the first man called out as they slowly closed in on the pair, matching Ichigo's slow retreat as he forced Rukia's stumbling steps. "Let the woman go!"

Rukia's hands clawed at Ichigo's tight embrace behind her, feeling his face still at her ear, confusion engulfing her plight. "I don't --"

"Don't be afraid," he said, his words belying his actions. "When we get to the door, run. Fight me. Get on a flight home later."

"Halt!" the first policeman demanded, taking several brisk steps as the other three drew their guns, spreading out across the room as the clerk ducked behind the counter. He looked to the officers and gave a command in French. All three men holstered their guns, leaving him alone armed, still brandishing the gun at Ichigo. "Let her go!"

Rukia frowned, trying to twist to see Ichigo better, but he only pulled her closer to the door. "But, Ichigo --"

"Shut up and do it," he said, arms tightening roughly until she squirmed against him, fingernails etching into his arms at the bruising hold. "Understand?"

She nodded and tried to push his arms from her waist. He bumped back against one of the doors as her struggles increased, letting her break away after she elbowed him in the ribs.

Against her fleeting judgment, Rukia bolted past him, through the door out onto the dark sidewalk as the policemen rushed Ichigo and descended on him with their night sticks. She looked back as he was tackled to the ground, and then obeyed his last words to her.


	18. Chapter 18

They'd been in the stuffy room for over an hour and the stench of well-used smoke was grinding on Aizen's nerves. Esparo only added to the problem, abiding happily in the open-smoking policy of the small French town's police station.

It was exactly what Aizen had expected of the ill-equipped station; what he'd _expected_, and exactly what he _needed_. It surprised him that the slap-dash force of five officers had been able to scrum up a lip-reader at the late hour.

She sat across from him at the table where he, Esparo, the police chief and the head officer of Kurosaki's arrest were seated.

The thick swirls of smoke circulated around her, the early-thirties woman looking more tired than irritated in the haze of her work environment. All eyes were fastened on the television on a pedestal at the end of the table where the security camera from the train station had been played and replayed for thirty minutes, every moment and movement of Rukia and Ichigo's time of capture scrutinized.

"Right there," Aizen said for the fourth time as they watched the screen, his eyes narrowing on Ichigo as he dragged Rukia before him as he backed to the train station entrance.

The lip reader sighed a long puff of smoke into the air, her fingers aged beyond her years, the smoke showing in her face in creases around her lips. "He says, 'Back up. Be afraid,'" she said in English, her voice grating in her thick French accent. "'When we get to the door run. Fight me. Get on a flight home later.'" She glanced to Aizen. "Again, Monsieur, he maybe said '_Don't_ be afraid.' I cannot tell from this angle."

Aizen nodded, ignoring the weary looks of the men around the table. Esparo glanced his way, but he didn't acknowledge him. He watched the tape rewound, the images of his targets jerky and quick as the scene replayed in reverse. The second officer played it again.

Without prompting, the woman began her delivery as they watched Ichigo grab Rukia from off the train station bench. "She says, 'Ichigo, what are you -' I can't decipher what he says there. She nods. He says 'Back up. Be afraid. When we get to the door run. Fight me. Get on a flight home later.' All English."

Aizen looked to the police chief, who returned a cool look of disdain equal to one of Aizen's best. "Where is she?"

The chief shrugged, tapping out his cigarette in a large ash tray in the center of the table. "She got away in the confusion," he said in precise English.

"Find her."

There was no suggestion in Aizen's tone, and the chief nodded subtlety. "The department in pressing charges for assault, but after trial and sentencing here he will be turned over to you for prosecution."

To Esparo's surprise, Aizen nodded. "Then I want twenty-four hours for questioning before you press charges."

The chief gave Aizen a long look, most of it lost in the smoke. "You will sign the release and inmate return papers?"

Aizen nodded, keeping the smile from his face. "Can he talk?"

The second officer chuckled, but his superior answered.

"We are not the L.A.P.D., Agent Aizen," he said levelly. "He can talk. Permission for twenty-four hour questioning granted." He nodded to the second officer, who quickly stood and left the room. "After paperwork, you understand."

* * *

Rukia had watched the police station ever since following Ichigo and the French policemen from the train station. She'd had every intention of getting as far away as possible from the scene in the station when the officers had descended on him like a pack of rabid wolves.

She'd heard the police clubs on him even as the door behind her swung shut. His muted grunts, his cursing mingling with what she was sure to be swearing in French replayed through her mind. She'd gotten as far as the next building before her steps slowed. A taxi had followed her along the sidewalk from the street, and she hurriedly waved him away, not wanting to draw attention from the authorities. He'd strolled the car alongside her until she ducked into a narrow alley. After a moment the taxi had passed, seeming to lose interest in her fare for the night.

She'd peeked around the corner of the alley building in time to see the four policemen rustle Ichigo down the sidewalk, his hands clasped behind his back in cuffs, his posture and slight limp evidence of his previous beating.

For the next ten minutes she'd followed them at a distance to the police station three blocks away, but didn't dare get any closer as he was taken inside. Her relief at escaping the helicopter crash and police at the train station had faded as she thought about the man with the orange-copper hair that she simply knew as Ichigo.

He'd said to go home, had ensured her escape by giving himself up to the authorities, but Rukia didn't have the heart to follow through with his orders to go home. She clutched her purse closer, nervous hands too tired to tremble. She leaned against the brick building as the deep thick of night eclipsed the town. More than anything she wanted to sit down.

No. More than anything she wanted Ichigo to be at her side, she realized. She let out a weary sigh. She was in over her head, past anything she'd ever done before. With resolve, she swallowed what she could of her fears and looked down the opposite side of the street, hoping.

It was there. The taxi she'd shunned.

She waved to where it was parked a block away, the optimistic driver still eager for her fare.

She smiled her most ingratiating smile for the scruffy-looking man inside as the taxi stopped beside her part of the sidewalk curb a moment later. "Hello. Do you speak any English?"

He smiled widely. "But of course, madam. You need a ride to somewhere?"

She nodded, then shook her head. She was about to clarify the matter when she saw a movement at the police station. The entrance door opened and several figures paused there, among them one she knew to be Ichigo.

She looked back at the taxi driver, and then hurriedly opened the car's back door and climbed into the seat behind him.

He looked at her in the rear view mirror, but her eyes were on the police station. "Where do you wish to go, madam?"

Rukia's attention was still on the police station. Ichigo was led out of the station and put into the back seat of a waiting sedan, hands still cuffed behind him. She didn't recognize Esparo as he slammed the back door shut after Ichigo. She knew by Ichigo's slumped posture when leaving the station - supported mainly by Esparo - that he was injured enough to need assistance, and that she found troubling.

The jolt through her veins shouldn't have been there, not for another man, not for anyone other than Michael, and Rukia told herself it was because Ichigo's beaten condition was partly on her behalf. But she knew it was more.

She leaned forward on the seat, looking past the taxi driver to where Esparo was starting the car. "Can you follow that car?" she asked the driver, pointing before them, half hidden behind the man's bulk. Her eyes jerked back to the station as Aizen came out and got into the car parked behind Esparo's. She watched it start, and then both cars pulled onto the street, heading in the opposite direction. "Can you follow both cars?"

The driver chuckled a gravely sound. "Ah, you wish me to give chase?"

"Uh, well, I don't know if you have to chase them, but follow," she said falteringly, "yes, follow."

The driver turned the steering wheel, a gleam coming to his middle-aged face. "All my life I wanted to give chase, madam."

There was no chase. The two sedans that left the police station headed out of town and onto a highway that made only a few curves along the dark countryside before another small town appeared. Rukia didn't know the name, the village limit sign announcing it in French, which she couldn't read.

The town was much like the first in the dark, about double in size, which wasn't saying much, with a few extra shops, bars, and hotels. It was one of these hotels that the two cars in front of the taxi stopped at, the only light coming through a muted glow at the reception window of the building.

It was a far cry from the luxury of the hotels Rukia had seen lately, consisting of three levels of once-elegant but dirty siding and ornamental window trim in need of new paint. She sighed as the cars parked at the curb.

"Keep going," she told the taxi driver, settling lower into the back seat as they passed the cars. She peeked over the edge of the upholstery just enough to see Esparo and Aizen get out. The both went to the rear door to let their passenger out.

"Turn around, madam?" the driver asked.

Rukia nodded, and then said: "Yes. I want to watch that hotel, but I don't want us to be seen. Can you do that?"

"Oui, madam. Of course."

The taxi made a few turns to put it back on the street a few blocks away, facing the hotel where the three men were just entering. The two cars were parked at the curb in front.

"They can't leave the cars there," the driver told Rukia as he shifted the taxi into park. "A big tag fine in the morning."

Rukia edged to the front seat to see past his shoulder. She hooked her arms over the seat, eyes moving over the hotel. "The hotel is open all night?"

He shook his head, looking over at her. "No, madam. Not even this late. Whoever they are," he said, waving a finger at the hotel where Aizen and Esparo had taken Ichigo, "they have money or influence." He cocked his head to the side as her eyes remained fixed on the hotel. "Someone you know?"

Her lips pursed at the question, it making her realize she knew very little about any of the men, including Ichigo. "Can we stay here?" She looked quickly to the meter sitting idle. "If I pay you by the hour, can we stay here and watch?"

This time the glint in his eyes was for the money. "But of course, madam."

They watched all night, at least, Rukia did. The driver nodded off forty-five minutes into the watch, the indolent streets under the muggy, still night inviting sleep rather than surveillance.

She saw little. A few lights came on in two of the tall second floor windows, some shadowed movements behind the pulled shades. Nothing of any definite form.

She had anchored herself at the front seat by her forearms, finding herself nodding off to sleep a few times only to flinch awake at the sounds of cats in the alley garbage cans nearby. So went her long night of vigil.

It was just after sun up that the town began to come to life, the shopkeepers opening their shops, signs gradually turning to _Open_ along the opposite sidewalk, the hotel's sign blinking on to green at the main window under the sunny sky.

Rukia didn't wake the taxi driver, instead taking a moment to look at herself in the rear view mirror. She subdued a groan at her dreary appearance. The days of flight and frenzy had caught up with her, the telltale mangling of hair only slightly combed and not completely free of tree debris from her impromptu helicopter jump.

She tried to comb her fingers through it, not wanting to yet wake the driver.

He woke up anyway. He mumbled something, eyes shifting to her as she sat back in the rear seat. He turned to see her better and leaned an arm over the bench seat. "You're still going to watch this place?" he asked, jerking a thumb at the hotel.

She nodded, knowing what was coming. "You probably have to leave."

He nodded, sighing. "I have a lot of explaining to do with the missus as it is. There are other taxis in town, madam. Two, I think."

She sat straighter and opened her purse, careful to limit his view of it contents. "You've been a great help. How much do I owe you?"

He told her the amount, and she readily paid him, and then asked for one final favor. She pointed past him to where the shops on the other side of town were putting out sandwich boards to advertise their daily specials and sales. "Can you drive me there?"

He squinted at the shops a few blocks ahead. "Which? Ah, the one with the café sign. You need breakfast, madam."

While Rukia agreed with that suggestion, she had her mind on another shop. "The one past the café." She smiled at the sight of the woman who was erecting a sandwich board advertising coifs in fanciful lettering. "The wig shop."

The driver chuckled, but obliged her.

Rukia looked to the two sedans as the taxi passed them at the hotel sidewalk. Her eyes fastened on the rear car, memorizing the license plate of the one Aizen had driven. She turned quickly as the driver swerved the taxi to the side of the street near the boutique selling wigs and casual dresses.

She nodded, looking to the display window. "This is perfect," she told the driver. She glanced down the sidewalk to where a public phone box was at the corner. _Even better_, she thought. She looked to the driver as he turned to her. "Thank you. You've been a lot of help."

* * *

Ichigo wasn't sure how long he was out, or even when he became fully conscious the next morning. He was aware of the throbbing at his temples and the sharp pain at his side amongst the assorted bruises sprinkled liberally over his body. The shine of the sun off the wooden floor made him squint at the brightness.

_Damn French police_, he thought as he struggled to open his eyes. He knew he was tied to the wooden, straight-backed chair in what he thought was the second story floor of a cheap hotel, but beyond that the preceding night's events were still fuzzy. He braced his feet to the chair legs were his ankles were tied and lifted his sagging head.

Pain soared through his neck, but he gritted his teeth and sat back in the chair, flexing his fingers at each of the chair armrests. They were tied at the wrists by black plastic bands, simple but effective, and had begun to cut into his skin in a few spots. He looked around the room.

There was little to see, a chair and folding card table set up before him a few feet away, two windows open a few inches to his left that sounded like they were facing a street below. The rest of the room was bare.

The French police that had arrested him hadn't beaten him as well as they could have, and Ichigo knew it. Just a few steps beyond subjugation. It was enough.

The door opened to his right and Ichigo looked to it, an immediate scowl coming to his face as he vaguely recognized Aizen and Esparo. The younger man set a small black case on the table as Aizen positioned himself between Ichigo and the second chair.

Aizen's gaze traveled over the slight bruising at Ichigo's temple and one eye. "Let's get down to business now," he said steadily, as if they were resuming a conversation they'd started.

Ichigo wondered if they had. He didn't remember one.

"Who are you?"

Ichigo's eyes narrowed on him. "What crime have I committed?" His attention snapped to Esparo, who was placing items from the case on the table.

"Aside from assaulting that woman at the train station?" Aizen recalled. "Killing that chopper pilot?"

Ichigo was half-relieved his ploy with Rukia had worked, but his defenses raised a notch when Esparo came toward him with a small, flat plastic box and a camera.

"You might call it a non-crime, and you know what it is," Aizen said.

Ichigo tensed as Esparo forced his stiff fingers individually onto the tacky beige pad in the box to record his fingerprints. "Can you be more specific?" he asked Aizen.

Esparo took a step back, raised the camera, and took Ichigo's picture.

Ichigo muttered a curse.

"You're Ichigo Kurosaki," Aizen said as Esparo took the box and camera back to the table behind him. "Yes, we know."

Ichigo shook his head, fingers drumming on each side of the armrests to aid circulation. "You've got the wrong guy."

Aizen feigned surprise, and not very well. "Oh? That's the name she gave us."

Every sense in Ichigo's body sharpened. "_Who_? What _she_?"

Aizen crossed his arms in front of him. "You don't think we fell for that charade at the train station, do you?" He nodded, smiling at Ichigo's sudden distress. "I think she'll talk for us after another night."

A hundred words sprung to Ichigo's mind, but his brain was still warming up from his assault, and none of the words got uttered. "She's got nothing to do with this."

Aizen nodded. "So you do care. Good."

A few of the thoughts flying through Ichigo's mind now made more sense. He grinned a bit, nodding slowly, a movement that made his temples pound more. "You don't have her," he said, recalling Aizen's use of his full name. "She _doesn't know_ as much as you've told me." He chuckled. "You're bluffing, you bastard."

Esparo glanced to Aizen at the accusation, but Aizen didn't look at him.

"You think so?" Aizen's smooth expression had turned somehow colder. "Esparo, grab the SPID and get that photo sent out. Interpol never got a photo of our new friend here. See what's come up on the woman."

Esparo nodded and left the room without looking to Ichigo. Aizen reached into his shirt's breast pocket and took out a well-worn paper that was folded into quarters, eyes locked onto Ichigo's.

"You're not Interpol?" Ichigo asked as Aizen walked past his chair and paused behind him.

"We're above Interpol, Kurosaki." He pushed Ichigo's head down to his chest to see a laceration scar below his hairline. Beneath that was an old burn mark that dissolved up into the scalp. He touched the irritated spot where the tracking chip was implanted.

"You've been flying below the radar for a long time, boy," he said, stepping back in front of Ichigo to face him.

Ichigo looked up at him. "I'm not your _boy_."

"You've got the markings of Interpol's John Doe 481, Passive List. You get around."

"Lots of people do."

Aizen's voice didn't change. "Do you remember how your mother died?"

A threatening look claimed Ichigo's face.

Aizen nodded, smiling. "I thought so. You never identified your father's body at the morgue."

Ichigo shifted uncomfortably in the chair, adrenalin reaching new heights. "I knew he was dead."

Aizen pulled two more papers from his pocket. He unfolded them, watching Ichigo's posture stiffen. He held them out for Ichigo to see.

"I'll be you did. You were there."

Ichigo looked at the papers. They were photos, old and creased black and whites. In one was Isshin Kurosaki, dead on a stretcher at the accident with the truck that had nearly killed Ichigo, too, and had sent him on the run as a teen. In the other was the funeral home, a photo of Ichigo a year younger looking into his dead mother's coffin.

He wanted to slap the photos from Aizen's hands. Instead his fists balled.

"The coroner said Isshin had been kept breathing for an hour. Artificially breathing," Aizen said methodically, turning the pictures so he could see them. "A feeble attempt at CPR had been made on him. Handprints on his chest in blood, so distinct we kept the tan shirt he was wearing. Those life-saving attempts were your doing."

Ichigo spat on the floor. "Damn you -"

"Forensics found a second blood type all over the truck seat and Isshin's body," Aizen continued, folding the photos.

"That's past," Ichigo bit out, the pain in his body replaced with rage. "You can -"

"_You_ can make a good life now, Ichigo," Aizen said. "A little information and no more hiding. The Division can be very accommodating."

"I saw how you _accommodated_ the Kern and Walters families. You jailed a fourteen year-old girl!"

"Little Momo Walters was difficult," Aizen said with a smile and a sigh. "It's all about cooperation. You give us what we want, and the past is past, Ichigo. Get a wife. Maybe that one from the station. No more running. Why stand on principle?"

Ichigo sat back in the chair. "Forget it. No names."

Aizen was going to continue, but the door opened and Esparo returned. He handed Aizen a photo.

"The police chief just sent it over," he said, eyeing Ichigo. "It's from the train station's security camera."

Aizen nodded as he studied the black and white image. In it he could see little of Rukia's face, but her hand on Ichigo's around her waist was clear enough. He smiled at the wedding ring on her finger.

"So you've already got that wife," he said to Ichigo, looking up. "You can protect her now by talking. You know what we want, Kurosaki." He nodded to Esparo who was sorting thorough the case on the table. "Shoot him."

* * *

**Author's Note: **_Thanks for reading, and to everyone who alerted this. Sorry it took so long to update. Assorted problems ..._


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